March 22 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's parliament said on Friday that it has appointed Radoslav Milenkov as deputy governor of the Bulgarian National Bank in charge of banking supervision, after he was nominated by central bank governor Dimitar Radev.
Milenkov's appointment was backed by all 115 MPs who took part in the vote, the parliament said in a statement.
From November 2014 until now Milenkov was chairman of the management board of the Bulgarian Deposit Insurance Fund.
"During his successful mandate as chairman of the BDIF he has maintained good cooperation with the Bulgarian National Bank, the Ministry of Finance, the banking community in the country and other national and international institutions," Radev said earlier this month.
The outgoing deputy governor in charge of banking supervision, Dimitar Kostov, announced on March 1 his intention to resign, saying he feels the time is right for someone with a full six-year mandate to take charge of the department, as Bulgaria is moving ahead with preparations to join the eurozone.
"The great amount of work in the Banking Supervision Department throughout the past few years and the completion of the major part of the planned reforms gave me reason in the middle of my mandate in 2018 to ask for its termination. At the request of the governor, I delayed the execution of my intention due to the new commitments of the Banking Supervision Department, which arose after the plans for joining the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) were submitted in June and July last year," Kostov said at the time.
In June 2018, finance minister Vladislav Goranov announced that Bulgaria will seek to simultaneously enter into close cooperation with the European Central Bank (ECB) and into the Exchange Rate Mechanism ERM II - the preparatory phase for adopting the euro.
Subsequently, in November and December, the ECB conducted a comprehensive assessment of six banks in Bulgaria, including an asset quality review and a stress test, as part of Bulgaria's efforts to join the SSM. ECB tested the four largest lenders in Bulgaria in terms of assets - UniCredit Bulbank, DSK Bank, United Bulgarian Bank (UBB) and First Investment Bank (Fibank) [BUL:5F4], as well as lower-ranked Central Cooperative Bank (CCB) [BUL:4CF] and Investbank. Results are due to be published in July.
"Today, having in mind the established excellent working communication with the ECB and the SSM in this process and its advanced stage, there is an opportunity for me to step down from heading the Banking Supervision Department," Kostov also said.