February 20 (SeeNews) - The Bulgarian financial regulator has said it is inviting external experts to review the assets of the country's pension funds and insurance companies as at end-2016 as a follow-up to asset reviews that looked at the state of affairs as at end-June.
"Independent external experts will carry out a review of the insurers and pension funds' assets as of December 31, 2016 in order to ensure the lasting effect of the previous review of the assets," the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) said in a statement late on Friday.
The results should be submitted to the regulator no later than March 31 for the pension funds reviews, May 22 for insurers and re-insurers on an individual basis and June 3 for insurers and re-insurers at a group level.
"Each insurer and reinsurer must notify the Financial Supervision Commission about its choice of at least one independent external expert no later than March 2, 2017," the regulator said.
The review of the assets of Bulgaria's pension funds and the balance sheets of the insurance and reinsurance companies, as well as the stress tests of insurers and re-insurers showed earlier this month that the Bulgarian insurance and pension insurance sectors are stable.
The insurance sector remained above 100% of the capital requirements, as the insurance balance sheet review showed an aggregated Solvency Capital Requirement (SCR) ratio of 154% and an aggregated Minimum Capital Requirement (MCR) ratio of 308% for the solo entities before the impact of the consistency procedures, the regulator said at the time.
For thirteen companies, the total available own funds to cover SCR and/or MCR as at June 30 was insufficient. Those companies had a total MCR deficit of 25 million levs ($13.7 million/12.8 million euro), and total SCR of 50 million levs.
The pension funds’ assets review and insurers' balance sheet review as at June 30, 2016 were performed between July 15 and the end of January 2017. The information on the outcome of the reviews was provided by independent external reviewers and was summarized by international consultancy Ernst&Young.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)