Participation in auctions will be made through bank accounts, thanks to a new electronic system. Individuals and subjects will only hold their securities account at the central bank, while cash transactions will be conducted through commercial banks.
TIRANA, Aug. 19 – Bank of Albania is introducing a more simplified procedure for investors to purchase government securities. The new procedure will be fully applicable this coming December with the final aim to encourage more individual investors in the market of government securities and to generally facilitate access in the main instruments of financial investments.
The main change to the new procedure, according to sources within BoA, is that investors won’t have to open a cash deposit at Central Bank. Instead, they can use their account in commercial banks.
Whenever BoA is auctioning a new batch of T-bills and bonds, investors can use a new electronic system to participate in and complete transactions straight from their commercial banks’ deposits. This system is being established as part of the application of a joint project between private banks and Bank of Albania.
Individuals and subjects will only hold their securities account at the Central Bank, while cash transactions will be conducted through commercial banks.
Bank of Albania says that this new system will significantly reduce the number of customers on its counters, who usually come to perform cash transactions. Such transactions will be made in commercial banks, which have a more suitable infrastructure.
The new procedure is hoped to increase the number of individual investors in government securities, who at the end of the first half of this year were responsible in financing around 12 percent of the domestic public debt.
