1. The Board decided to issue a warning to AB PAREX BANKAS.
The decision was taken on the grounds that according to the financial statements presented by the Bank it failed to comply with the minimum capital adequacy requirement. On 13 February 2002 AB PAREX BANKAS presented documents showing restored compliance with the above requirement.
2. The Board gave permission to Sampo Bank to register changes in its Articles of Association related to the increase of the share capital by LTL 6 million to the total of LTL 47,040,000. In addition, the Board decided to change the license of the Bank into a license allowing the Bank to perform all operations provided by the Law on Commercial Banks and the Bank’s Articles of Association, with the exception of trade in precious metals.
3. The Board decided to issue permission to Siaulių Bank to establish a branch in Kaunas.
4. The Board approved minimum public disclosure requirements.
The minimum public disclosure requirements prescribe the procedure for the disclosure of information by commercial banks operating in Lithuania, set the minimum requirements to the contents of such information, periodicity of disclosure and define the role of the Bank of Lithuania in providing public information on the status of the banks and the whole system of credit institutions.
The minimum public disclosure requirements were developed in order to ensure greater transparency of banking operations and increase market discipline by disclosing in accessible form sufficient and timely information to the public on the financial standing of each operating bank, nature of assumed risks, application of enforcement measures and other operating indicators.
5. The Board was presented information on the participation of the Bank of Lithuania in European Union preaccession processes.
It was noted that the BoL completed all tasks provided in the plan for the legal harmonisation and the adoption of the acquis under the National Programme for the Adoption of the Acquis. This was confirmed in the 2001 report of the European Commission on Lithuania’s progress, which made a positive assessment of progress in the fields related to the functions of the Bank of Lithuania.
In preparing to join the European System of Central Bank in the future, in 2001 the Bank of Lithuania worked together with the European Central Bank (ECB) in doing comparative studies on the situation in the candidate countries and in taking over the experience and practices of the ECB in central banking statistics, legal harmonisation, payment systems, financial sector and other fields. Co-operation with the ECB also included banknote and coin protection from counterfeiting, accounting, information technologies, re-pegging of the litas and other issues.
After the Nice European Council in 2001 approved the proposal of the European Commission to start a qualitatively new political dialogue between EU Member States and candidate countries and ensure co-ordination of policies by the Member States and candidate countries, the first Lithuanian preaccession economic programme was drawn up. The aim of the programme is to define the country’s economic policy and reforms needed to prepare for EU accession. Within the programme, the Bank of Lithuania worked on the sections on inflation, monetary and exchange rate policy and the external sector.