Baltic States – CIS, Banks, Financial Services, Lithuania

‘Our experts provided consultations, organised training, prepared and proposed methodologies on organising activities in important central bank activity areas. Crucially, the commitment, responsibility, professionalism, and deep engagement of our Belarusian counterparts both on expert and management level were key in bringing the project to a successful conclusion. The Long-standing bilateral cooperation between our countries has been further enhanced on an international level with the participation of German and Polish central banks,’ – said Asta Kuniyoshi, Deputy Chair of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania.

The six-component project, financed with EU funds, was launched at the beginning of 2018. The Bank of Lithuania took on the leading role in two project components – financial stability and banking supervision. 13 experts from the Bank of Lithuania, together with other project participants from EU national central banks, consulted Belarusians on these and other four project components, namely payment systems, financial risk management, financial consumer protection, and communication policy.

To implement this first EU Twinning Project to be undertaken in Belarus, national central banks of Lithuania, Poland and Germany established a consortium, which was awarded an EU contract. This was the first ever Twinning venture for the Bank of Lithuania during which it gained valuable experience from Deutsche Bundesbank and Narodowy Bank Polski – two distinguished institutions that have proven to be reliable partners in various EU Twining Projects.

 Cooperation between the central banks of Lithuania and Belarus on expert and management level has been maintained for more than 20 years, prompting the exchange of information on countries’ economic development, best practices in financial market supervision, performance management, internal audit, HR, communication, etc.