September 16 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's financial regulator has said that new external reviewers have been selected to replace the disqualified firm RSM Bulgaria in assessing the financial health of the country's pension funds and insurers.
The Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) said earlier this month that it had removed RSM Bulgaria from a list of external reviewers after an investigation revealed that the company has submitted documents containing false information.
The insurers and pension funds, which had initially selected RSM Bulgaria, were asked to terminate their contracts with the company and select new reviewers.
The reviewers which will replace RSM are France's Mazars, the Romanian unit of KPMG, Deloitte Audit, HLB Bulgaria, PwC, and Poland's Milliman, the FSC said in a statement on Thursday.
In March, the regulator republished invitations for external reviewers for the Asset Quality Review (AQR) of the Bulgarian pension funds and insurers with a changed deadline for submitting applications following an assessment by the Steering Committee composed of representatives of domestic and European financial authorities. The FSC noted that the capacity proposed at the first call did not match the needs for reviewing the two sectors. The new deadline for releasing the final results of the stress tests is December 1.
In May 2015, the European Commission recommended to Bulgaria to review and strengthen banking and non-banking financial sector supervision and improve corporate governance in financial intermediaries.
The move came after in mid-2014, Bulgaria's then third- and fourth-biggest banks were hit by run on deposits. While First Investment Bank (FIBank) was rescued by the government, Corporate Commercial Bank (Corpbank) collapsed, triggering mounting distrust in the banking system and the central bank's regulatory practices.
Last month, the central bank said that the AQR and stress tests of the banking sector showed that the capital adequacy of each bank was above the minimum regulatory requirements, but recommended capital increases for two local lenders, namely FIBank and Investbank.