Objective

The Bank of Lithuania is the central bank of the Republic of Lithuania. Its principal objective is to maintain price stability. In seeking its principal objective, the Bank of Lithuania is independent from the Government of the Republic of Lithuania or other institutions of the state.

Functions

In implementing the primary objective, the Bank of Lithuania performs the following functions:
- issuing the currency of the Republic of Lithuania;
- formulating and implementing monetary policy;
- determining the litas exchange rate regulation system and announcing the official exchange rate of the litas;
- managing, using and disposing of foreign reserves of the Bank of Lithuania;
- acting as a State Treasury agent;
- issuing and revoking licenses of credit institutions of the Republic of Lithuania and permissions for the establishment and operation of branches and representative offices of credit institutions of foreign states, supervising their activities and establishing the principles and procedures for financial accounting and reporting;
- developing and managing an inter-bank funds tranfer system and establishing the requirements for the participants of the inter-bank funds transfer system;
- collecting monetary, banking and balance of payments statistics, as well as data on Lithuanian financial and related statistics, implementing standards on the collection, reporting and dissemination of such statistics and compiling the balance of payments of the Republic of Lithuania;
-establish principles and procedures for financial accounting and reporting of credit institutions of the Republic of Lithuania and branches of credit institutions of foreign states operating in the Republic of Lithuania;
-encourage stable and efficient operation of payment and securities settlement systems.

Management and Structure

The Bank of Lithuania is governed by the board of the bank consisting of a Chairperson, two Deputy Chairpersons and two Members.
The activites of the Bank of Lithuania are organised by the Chairperson of the Board. The Chairperson of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania is appointed for a term of five years by the Seimas upon the nomination by the President. The Deputy Chairpersons and Member s of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania are appointed for a term of nine years by the President upon the nomination by the Chairperson of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania.

The ongoing operations of the Bank of Lithuania are managed by eleven departments: Economics, Statistics, Market Operations, Credit Institutions Supervision, International Relations, Payment Systems, Cash, Accounting, Information Technology, General Services and Security; six autonomous divisions (Internal Audit, Legal, Organisation and Personnel, General and Public Relations, Risk Management) and Bank of Lithuania Branches in Kaunas and Klaipeda.

Organisational Structure of the Bank of Lithuania (chart)

Accounting and Reporting

In its activities the Bank of Lithuania follows the principles of public accounting and transparency. Publication of information about its activities, disclosure of other financial and economic data helps to ensure the transparency of the operations of the Bank of Lithuania as well as the whole country. This in turn determines the increasing reliability of the country's economic and financial sectors.
In adherence to transparency practices, each year the Bank of Lithuania publishes its annual financial statements and the auditor's report. In addition, the Bank of Lithuania publishes its annual report as a separate publication, where it provides information on the basic tasks of monetary policy and their implementation, monetary policy operations, credit institutions supervision activities and other responsibilities established by the legislation as well as information on the national macroeconomic situation, such as analysis of the developments in the national economy and financial markets, and on the financial position of the Bank and the results of its activities.The Bank of Lithuania publishes monthly and quarterly bulletins where it presents information about its activities as well as a wide range of financial and macroeconomic information. Information is also published on the internet site of the Bank of Lithuania.
The Bank of Lithuania adheres to the principle of periodical release of information on the basis of an advance release calendar meeting the requirements of the Special Data Dissemination Standard.
In addition, twice a year the Bank of Lithuania presents reports to the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania on the implementation of the primary objective.