The Twinning Programme in favour of the Bank of Albania (BoA) came to an end on 21 July. The Programme, funded by the European Commission with 1 million euros, was managed by Banca d'Italia in cooperation with Banque de France.
The three central banks were involved in the Programme for 20 months. In the first place a gap analysis was conducted of BoA's operating procedures - comparing them with Eurosystem best practices and corrective actions were identified and agreed upon in order to bring BoA's structural functions closer to EU standards. Banking supervision, financial literacy, statistics, payment systems, interbank money market and the EU integration process were the sectors of intervention. Then, on the basis of the results of the gap analysis, a number of technical assistance activities were organised, such as workshops, seminars, conferences and practical training activities, together with study visits to both Banca d'Italia and Banque de France. Thanks to the savings realised in the management of the Programme, the Twinning was extended by 2 months beyond the 18 months initially foreseen; during the extension, starting from the results achieved by the Twinning, guidelines were defined for future developments in each sector and additional actions defined that could allow BoA to come closer to EU standards.
The official Twinning closing ceremony was held in Tirana on 16 July, in the presence of representatives of the Albanian government and financial system. The event provided an opportunity to illustrate the contribution of the Programme to strengthening the BoA's methodologies and working practises. The Bank of Italy was represented by Mr. Franco Passacantando, Managing Director for Relations with International Institutions, who was in charge of the Twinning as Project Leader.
