ISET-PI collaborated with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on a three-day training workshop (2-4 September) to review the best international practices in measuring and monitoring the soundness of a country's financial sector. The event brought together NBG and GeoStat officials together with ISET researchers to facilitate improvements in the Georgian system of financial soundness indicators.

Financial soundness indicators (FSIs) are statistical measures compiled to monitor the health and soundness of financial institutions and markets, and/or their corporate and household counterparts.  FSIs include aggregated information on financial institutions and indicators that are representative of the markets in which financial institutions operate.

This workshop reviewed the available financial soundness indicators of Georgia and highlighted the problems associated with them.

During the event, ISET presented the results of a research project that was commissioned by the ADB. The project compiled and analyzed the financial soundness indicators of Georgia to assess the financial sector’s stability/vulnerability over time and compare it with other relevant countries in the context of the overall investment climate situation in the country. The analysis also included an assessment of the availability and quality of FSIs, their gaps, and the challenges for their improvement.

A large team from the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) attended the workshop. Nana Aslamazashvili, head of the Monetary Statistics Division at the NBG, made a presentation about financial soundness indicators and gave an assessment of the financial sector. Giorgi Bakradze also presented an overview of the Georgian financial sector.

Discussions were facilitated by Guntur Sugiyarto, a senior economist at the Asian Development Bank, and Maya Grigolia, a senior research fellow at ISET-PI. Representatives of the National Bank of Georgia, the National Statistics Office of Georgia, the Ministry of Finance, and the Securities and Exchange Commission were involved in the discussions about understanding and analyzing financial soundness indicators.