About the supervisory activities

The Supervision Service of the Bank of Lithuania

A new unit of the Bank of Lithuania, the Supervision Service, which started its operation in the beginning of 2012, supervises commercial banks and other credit and payment institutions, securities and insurance markets, and investigates disputes between consumers and financial institutions. Up till now, these functions were performed by the liquidated Securities Commission and Insurance Supervisory Commission, as well as the Credit Institutions Supervision Department of the Bank of Lithuania. The State Consumer Rights Protection Service and the Insurance Supervisory Commission were responsible for the investigation of the disputes between consumers and financial institutions.

The Board of the Bank of Lithuania authorized the Supervision Service to solve independently, according to its competence, certain financial institution supervision issues.

The Supervision Service of the Bank of Lithuania was authorized to apply enforcement measures provided by the laws, to issue instructions and obligations, to apply prohibitions and other measures to the supervised financial market participants, with the exception of banks, the Central Credit Union of Lithuania, insurance undertakings, branches of foreign banks and insurance undertakings established in the Republic of Lithuania.

The Supervision Service was also authorized to solve issues related to the issue of licences, permissions, consents, approvals, non-objections, suspension of their validity, cancellation of the suspension of their validity and their revocation (cancellation of validity), with the exception of some cases.

Even after the delegation of part of the functions to the Supervision Service, the Board of the Bank of Lithuania retained the right to solve any issue to be solved by structural units of the Bank of Lithuania.

Supervision of Credit and Payment Institutions

The Bank of Lithuania performs an ongoing analysis of the financial situation in credit and payment institutions, assesses their performance, controls their compliance with prudential or other requirements, analyses the performance and trends of the system of credit and payment institutions, issues licences, permissions and consents to supervised institutions. It also investigates disputes among consumers and supervised institutions and provides recommendations on how, according to the Bank of Lithuania, a particular dispute between a consumer and a financial institution should be settled.

Supervision of Credit Institutions

The goal of the supervision of credit institutions is to monitor compliance of credit institutions with the standards of safe and sound banking set by the laws and legal acts of the Bank of Lithuania and recommended in the International Accounting Standards and decisions of the Basel Committee.

The Bank of Lithuania performs an ongoing analysis of the financial situation of credit institutions, makes an assessment of their activities, controls their compliance with prudential requirements, analyses the performance and trends of the banking system. The Bank of Lithuania systematically performs inspections and examinations of credit institutions (usually no less than once a year for commercial banks and every two years for credit unions). Inspections of credit institutions mainly focus on the highest risk areas of their operation by checking the management of credit, liquidity, market and operational risks and its efficiency. In case any drawbacks of the operation of credit institutions or non-compliance cases are discovered, the institution is asked to remove them or, if necessary, enforcement measures established by legal acts are applied.

The supervision of branches established by banks of EU Member States in Lithuania is performed by the supervisory authority of the state under whose jurisdiction the foreign bank falls. The Bank of Lithuania is responsible for the supervision of compliance of branches with the liquidity ratio, monitors their deposit concentration, analyses financial indicators, changes in assets and liabilities, income and costs, internal control mechanisms applied and performs inspections within its competence.

As from the beginning of 2008, commercial banks in Lithuania are subject to new capital adequacy calculation requirements elaborated according to directives of the European Union. According to these requirements, banks not only calculate the regulatory capital requirement, but also make an assessment of the internal capital adequacy.

The Bank of Lithuania established the requirements for the public disclosure of information by commercial banks. Such information is useful for commercial bank customers, investors and other parties concerned in the assessment of a bank's performance, its operations and risk management processes. On the other hand, a higher degree of transparency also encourages commercial banks to assess and control the assumed risks more accurately.

Supervision of Payment Institutions

A payment institution is an economic entity providing payment services, which is neither a credit institution nor an electronic money institution and may not accept deposits or other repayable funds from unprofessional market participants and issue electronic money. In addition to payment services, payment institutions have a right to provide additional services closely related with these services and they are also permitted to perform other activities not associated with payment services.

The Bank of Lithuania performs regular off-site inspections of payment services provided by payment institutions and additional services closely related thereto. If needed, it conducts on-site inspections and prepares legal acts regulating the requirements for payment institutions activities, risk management, internal control and other requirements.

The Bank of Lithuania provides methodological assistance to payment institutions in implementing the provisions of laws and legal acts adopted by the Board of the Bank of Lithuania that regulate the requirements for payment institutions activities, risk management, internal control and other requirements.

Supervision of Insurance Market

The purpose of supervision of insurers and insurance intermediaries is to ensure reliability, efficiency, safety and stability of the insurance system and protection of the interests of the policyholders, insured, beneficiaries and injured third parties (thereinafter—users) Following the requirements of the European Union directives, international standards and insurance supervision best practice, the Bank of Lithuania conducts the supervision and legal regulation of insurance market participants.

The Bank of Lithuania controls compliance of insurers and insurance intermediaries with the requirements of the legal acts regulating their activities and with the licensing conditions. The supervision of insurers and insurance intermediaries is conducted by analysing the data of their financial and statistical reports and other information provided to the supervisory authority (by performing documentary supervision) and by conducting inspections of companies.

As a preliminary extrajudicial dispute resolution authority, the Bank of Lithuania investigates disputes between consumers and insurers. A consumer who considers that an insurer violated their contractual or related rights or legitimate interests and seeks to protect them may contact the Bank of Lithuania. Moreover, the Bank of Lithuania examines complaints concerning the activity of insurance market participants and provides methodological assistance to insurance market participants.

In order to be an active participant in the formation and implementation of the insurance and insurance supervision policy of the state and to provide information to the public on the changes in the insurance market, the Bank of Lithuania constantly analyses insurance market indicators and forecasts its development trends.

Supervision of Insurers

The Bank of Lithuania monitors the financial situation of insurance companies registered in the Republic of Lithuania, controls their compliance with the requirements of adequacy of technical provisions and their coverage by assets, solvency margin, guarantee fund, reinsurance, assesses efficiency of their internal control and risk management systems and the behaviour of insurance companies in the market with respect to users.

The financial supervision of branches of insurance companies of other European Union Member States established in Lithuania (thereinafter—branches) is conducted by the supervisory authorities of respective Member States where the companies (founders of branches) are registered. In order to have sufficient information on the financial situation of these companies, the Bank of Lithuania cooperates with their supervisory authorities. It also investigates the disputes of consumers with the branches and complaints concerning their activity and conducts the supervision of their behaviour in the market with respect of users.

Insurers must comply with the established requirements on the provision of information to the public. The insurance company’s or branch’s website must contain essential information about the company, financial statements, descriptions of insurance products, the procedures of compensation payment and complaints and disputes resolution, the lists of dependent insurance intermediaries.

Supervision of Insurance Intermediaries

Independent insurance intermediaries—insurance broker companies—represent the interests of consumers by acting as intermediaries during the acquisition of insurance protection. Insurance broker companies are licensed by the Bank of Lithuania and must comply with the requirements established for this activity (capital adequacy, professional indemnity insurance, separate bank account, information provision to consumers and establishment of their needs). The Bank of Lithuania also organises qualification examinations for insurance brokers—only persons who passed such examinations and became members of the Chamber of Insurance Brokers may engage in the activity of insurance brokers.

The activity of dependent insurance intermediaries—insurance agents—is not licensed; insurance companies represented by these intermediaries are directly responsible for their activity.

Supervision of Markets in Financial Instruments

Participants of the financial instruments market are financial brokerage firms, financial advisor companies, management companies, investment companies, banks providing investment services, regulated markets and their members, the Central Securities Depository of Lithuania and account managers.

The main objective of the supervision of financial instruments market participants is to ensure an honest, effective and transparent operation of the domestic financial market, mitigate systemic risk of the market, encourage a sustainable development and ensure the provision of information to investors and their protection.

The Bank of Lithuania issues licences and permissions to securities market participants, suspends or revokes them, performs monitoring and control to ensure a stable operation of market participants, their reliable management and capability to fulfil their obligations.

In addition, the Bank of Lithuania performs the supervision of regulated market participants to ensure their observance of the fair trade rules and a timely provision to investors of all information that is required to be disclosed by the legal acts.

At the same time, it is sought to ensure that in providing investment services investors were served in an honest, fair and professional manner and were given all required information, allowing to make rational investment decisions.

In order to form as favourable conditions for the development of the capital market as possible, the Bank of Lithuania ensures the quality of regulation and legal clarity: it submits proposals on the formulation of the state economic policy, stimulating the development of the markets in financial instruments, disseminates information about operational principles of the markets in financial instruments and undertakes other measures to implement the Law on Markets in Financial Instruments and other legal acts related with the markets in financial instruments.