Macro-prudential policy

Macro-prudential policy aims to prevent excessive build-up of risks from external factors and market failures, increase the resilience of the financial sector to shocks and limit contagion effects, and encourage a broad perspective on financial regulation to create the right incentives for market participants.

In order to conduct effective macroprudential policy at national level, national macroprudential authorities have been designated under Recommendation ESRB/2011/3 to define intermediate macroprudential policy objectives for their national financial system as a whole.

Taking into account the particularities of the supervised non-bank financial markets, the ASF assumed at the end of 2017 a number of 7 intermediate objectives and 13 macro-prudential tools. The ASF conducts regular analyses of the risks and vulnerabilities identified in the three supervised non-bank financial markets, as well as the appropriateness of implementing existing macroprudential tools.

The main intermediate objectives of the ASf are:

  • Reducing and preventing excessive lending and leverage - applies to capital market intermediaries;

  • Reducing and preventing excessive maturity mismatches and market illiquidity - applies to the insurance sector;

  • Limiting the concentration of direct and indirect exposures - applies to financial entities operating in the capital market and private pension sector in Romania;

  • Limiting the systemic impact of non-aligned incentives to reduce moral hazard - applies to financial entities operating in the capital market sector;

  • Strengthening the resilience of financial infrastructures;

  • Protecting the insurance system from the consequences of the insolvency of some insurers - applies to the insurance sector;

  • Reducing the negative impact of operational risks arising from the use of information and communication technology - applies to the three sectors supervised by the ASF.

     

 

To date, the ASF has implemented the following macro-prudential measures:

  • At the level of financial investment services companies (FISCs): capital conservation buffer (implemented in 4 equal annual instalments of 0.625% of the total value of risk-weighted exposures from 1 January 2016 to 1 January 2019):
    • From 1 January 2016 - 0.625%;
    • From 1 January 2017 - 1.25%;
    • From 1 January 2018 - 1.875%;
    • From 1 January 2019 - 2.5%.

As regards the countercyclical capital buffer and the systemic risk capital buffer, so far there are no conditions requiring the establishment of a level higher than 0% for this buffer for financial services intermediaries (FSIs);

 

  • In the case of insurance companies, the ASF has maintained the macro-prudential elements implemented previously:
  • Insurance company liquidity index: monitoring and analysis at least quarterly of the liquidity ratio of insurance companies;
  • recovery plan;
  • Insurance Guarantee Fund.
  • In the case of the private pension market, the ASF has maintained the macro-prudential instrument relating to restrictions on significant exposures regulated by Law No 411/2004 on privately managed pension funds, Law No 204/2006 on voluntary pensions and Rule No 11/2011 on investment and valuation of private pension fund assets;

In the case of private pension fund managers, in order to avoid concentration on a small number of issuers, the limitation of exposure to one issuer to 5% of net assets has been maintained and exposure to a group of issuers and their affiliated persons may not exceed 10% of the assets of the private pension fund;

All entities supervised by the ASF apply IT systems security requirements. These have been implemented by Rule No 4/2018 on the management of operational risks generated by IT systems used by entities authorised/licensed/registered, regulated and/or supervised by the Financial Supervisory Authority, according to which non-bank financial entities submit annual IT risk self-assessments and IT audit reports to the ASF (the frequency of which differs depending on the risk class of each entity).