Regional

The regional dimension was always important for Convergence. Initially, together with the EBRD, it was associated with the convening of an informal group of strategic bank investors in the region, conveniently called “Convergence Group”, that met to share notes on most pressing regulatory constraints for their businesses. These informal discussions proved valuable to determine the appropriate boundaries for Convergence’s activities.

Shortly before its official launch, on April 28, 2005, Convergence outlined the general "honest broker" principles of a possible collaboration with the Convergence Group.

A year later, In a meeting hosted by EBRD on May 10, 2006, Convergence briefed regional market players about the SPI Romania concept which was designed to meet their needs for a structured interface with authorities.

Faithful to its public-private mandate, Convergence has also contributed to the emerging need for regional supervisor cooperation with two technical seminars in September and November 2006. Issues discussed were harmonization of reporting requirements, common approaches to consumer protection issues and governance of foreign-owned banks. Convergence presented a summary of this work to a Regional Financial Stability Conference organized by Bank of Albania on October 30-31, 2006.

To contribute to the development of the “better regulation” culture in the financial sector, Convergence has teamed up with the Ljubljana-based Center of Excellence in Finance (CEF) to offer a three-day seminar on Financial Sector Regulatory Impact Assessment on September 12-14, 2007. Following are the Agenda (with documents),the Evaluation and the list of Participants and Speakers. Click here to view our Group picture.

Convergence will be ready to assist other countries in the region explore the feasibility of establishing SPI-like structures, as familiarity with the RIA-based consultation approach and its benefits to regulatory design continues to grow, in the perspective of eventual EU accession.