Politicians’ indecisiveness does not benefit Bank of Latvia / Article

The Saeima is expected to decide this week on Kazāks’ confirmation as governor of the Bank of Latvia.

Asked whether he expects the Saeima to take a similar turn with the appointment of the other Bank of Latvia council members as it did with the search for the Bank’s governor, Kazāks expressed the hope that this would not happen, because, in his opinion, “from the tortuous and difficult process that it has been over the last few months, policymakers will have taken note of the main things and will have learned from it”.

On the Bank’s main tasks for the next five years, Kazāks said that it was necessary to work on security, i.e. to ensure that people can pay even in various crises, that the financial sector is safe, that inflation is low, and to work on access to financial services so that services are cheaper, modern and regionally widely available.

Kazāks also said that the central bank should work to ensure that the Latvian economy grows rapidly in the long term, and that the cost of supervision is important and should be competitive in the region.

He added that there could be discussions about transferring supervision of non-bank lenders to the Bank of Latvia. At present, this is the responsibility of the Consumer Rights Protection Center.

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