2012-03-06
The Bank of Lithuania is taking initiative to strengthen the protection of bank secret
The Bank of Lithuania recognized that the legal regulation of bank secret in the country is not sufficiently clear, and the legal gaps create preconditions for a different interpretation of the requests to provide such information.
To strengthen confidence in credit institutions and clarify the problems related to bank secret disclosure, the Bank of Lithuania asked commercial banks and foreign bank branches for information about the requests received by credit institutions to provide the data that constitutes bank secret.
The survey showed that the main difficulties encountered by credit institutions when assessing validity of such requests and providing the information requested are related to the absence of clear legal regulation, quality of requests to provide information and their quantity. According to banks, institutions are requesting unnecessary data, very short terms are indicated for the provision of information, the information is requested to be received using insecure means. Most credit institutions noted that problems emerge most frequently when assessing whether there is a suitable legal ground for the provision of the requested data.
After assessing the information provided by banks, the Bank of Lithuania makes a conclusion that bank secret problem is of systemic nature, therefore, it should be solved be solved in a complex rather than fragmentary manner.
To achieve clearer and simpler regulation that eliminates legal ambiguities, the Bank of Lithuania took initiative to coordinate inter-institutional efforts in improving the bank secret institute and strengthening its protection. The Bank has created a working group, to which it invited the representatives of the concerned ministries, the State Data Protection Inspectorate, law-enforcement bodies and other state institutions.