"Fines are not our goal. We use fines not as pressure, but as prevention. This will be a good prevention, proportional to the growing sector," said the President of the National Bank, Natia Turnava, in response to a question about increasing the upper limit of fines for banks.

As Turnava explained to journalists, the goal of the National Bank is "prevention of violations."

"Fines, in general, are not our goal. Our goal is the prevention of various violations. The fine should be based on the principle of fairness, it should be proportional to the size of the sector, effective, and thus, carry a preventive load. The fines have not changed for about 15 years, and during these 15 years, the banking sector has developed very well and rapidly. Therefore, our decision was absolutely justified.

We increased the upper limit of fines, but, of course, we have maintained the scale. Therefore, we rarely use the maximum limit. However, we looked at international practices. Believe me, central banks in other developed countries have a much stricter approach.

We use fines not as pressure, but as prevention. This will be a good prevention, proportional to the growing sector.

Regarding microfinance institutions, we welcome the fact that two of them have transformed into microbanks. This was our expectation when the relevant legislative norm was adopted a few years ago. We congratulate these two microfinance organizations for presenting themselves in a different status in our market. In general, we welcome the emergence of new banking players because competition will increase. This was one of our main objectives. Of course, we will monitor how they establish themselves, because there is much more responsibility and regulation that belongs to banking entities than to microfinance institutions. We are confident that they will manage. The market has expanded, demand has grown, and therefore, we want to provide more opportunities for presenting and issuing financial services. At the same time, we want to increase accessibility to finance in this specific segment. We will look at regulations based on risks," said Natia Turnava.

Moreover, Turnava stated, "It is an incorrect assessment that banks are struggling to issue any loans."

"It is an incorrect assessment that banks are struggling to issue any loans. If you look at the growth rate of loan issuance, it is quite high, yet we call it sustainable, approximately 17-18%. This is quite a growing activity, and we don't see any obstacles," Turnava added.