Bulgaria's C-Bank Head of Banking Supervision to Resign
The Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) said on Friday that its deputy governor in charge of banking supervision, Dimitar Kostov, intends to submit his resignation to parliament. "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," Dimitar Kostov was quoted as saying in a press release issued by the central bank. In June, finance minister Vladislav Goranov announced 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.