AGERPRES: How would you characterize the RCA policy market and what changes do you plan to make in the next period?
Nicu Marcu: This subject, with the RCA insurance, has been taboo for years and how soon we will regulate it, because my role here, as president, is not to deal with the effects, but to deal with the cause. In this sense, I want to tell you that from the beginning of my term, I searched together with my colleagues here and I found solutions so that we can solve these issues related to the RCA policy, which is still causing dissension in the market.
And in this sense I want to tell you that we have gone on several levels. Once regarding the petitions, which are in a permanent debate in the market because there are so many petitions and so on. Alarm signals are sounded from the services who are the beneficiaries of the policies in the end. This is an aspect. We have tried to resolve incoming petitions as soon as possible. The petitions come both from those who have policies, the beneficiaries of policies, and from the assignees of the services. It's not just people who complain. If we refer to the percentage of petitions in the total damages, it is a small percentage, around 1.5%. The idea is that we are also interested if there are a few petitions, because it means that the insured is dissatisfied, ie something happens in this flow. We have to admit one more thing: the authority does not have competences on the part of the services. We have no skills in that area. Our competence is on the part of the insurance companies, to make sure that we, the authority, are insured, that is, the consumer's rights are respected.
AGERPRES: And what are you going to do?
Nicu Marcu: I acted on several levels. One of them: it is clear that you have to deal quickly with petitions coming to authority, but at the same time we are interested in the cause. For the cause, I acted on several levels. One of them is the urgency of approving the legislation on direct settlement. And in this sense we know very well that there has been a law in Parliament for a long time regulating this, but it has not been approved yet, it has been in the committees for a long time. And in my discussion with the former Minister of Finance, the current Prime Minister, I agreed to release the executive procedure as well. To start an endorsement and an approval by Emergency Ordinance. What could this Emergency Ordinance solve? Direct settlement means that the insured can collect his money from the company where he was insured.
AGERPRES: Does it currently apply?
Nicu Marcu: It applies, but it is optional. There is this option.
AGERPRES: And in case of an accident, what will happen?
Nicu Marcu: The company that insured you must settle your damage.
AGERPRES: What does the Ordinance bring?
Nicu Marcu: The ordinance clearly states that the settlement of damages will be made clearly by the company where you insured yourself. And then it closed. And insurance companies will settle between them. So it will no longer be a matter of you taking damage from another driver to take out that insurance and so on. The consumer will be, say, satisfied, in the sense that he immediately settles his damage and the insurance companies settle each other.
AGERPRES: Doesn't that amicable finding end?
Nicu Marcu: These are some procedures that follow. What interests us is that the settlement of the damage is done by the company I insured with. And then every insured person knows that he takes out his insurance from the companies he thinks are best for him.
AGERPRES: Will all RCA policies be like this?
Nicu Marcu: Exactly.
AGERPRES: Since when will this happen?
Nicu Marcu: Probably in a relatively short time, I say. Next we will contact the Government to go through the circuit as soon as possible. The sooner this Emergency Ordinance is approved, the sooner the situation in the market is resolved. Because we cannot reduce all the 3 markets that we regulate and supervise to only one product in the insurance area, this product which is a social product: RCA. The fact is that all the dissensions in the insurance market have been reduced to this product and this is not right.
AGERPRES: And what are you going to do?
Nicu Marcu: I acted on several levels. One of them: it is clear that you have to deal quickly with petitions coming to authority, but at the same time we are interested in the cause. For the cause, I acted on several levels. One of them is the urgency of approving the legislation on direct settlement. And in this sense we know very well that there has been a law in Parliament for a long time regulating this, but it has not been approved yet, it has been in the committees for a long time. And in my discussion with the former Minister of Finance, the current Prime Minister, I agreed to release the executive procedure as well. To start an endorsement and an approval by Emergency Ordinance. What could this Emergency Ordinance solve? Direct settlement means that the insured can collect his money from the company where he was insured.
AGERPRES: Does it currently apply?
Nicu Marcu: It applies, but it is optional. There is this option.
AGERPRES: And in case of an accident, what will happen?
Nicu Marcu: The company that insured you must settle your damage.
AGERPRES: What does the Ordinance bring?
Nicu Marcu: The ordinance clearly states that the settlement of damages will be made clearly by the company where you insured yourself. And then it closed. And insurance companies will settle between them. So it will no longer be a matter of you taking damage from another driver to take out that insurance and so on. The consumer will be, say, satisfied, in the sense that he immediately settles his damage and the insurance companies settle each other.
AGERPRES: Doesn't that amicable finding end?
Nicu Marcu: These are some procedures that follow. What interests us is that the settlement of the damage is done by the company I insured with. And then every insured person knows that he takes out his insurance from the companies he thinks are best for him.
AGERPRES: Will all RCA policies be like this?
Nicu Marcu: Exactly.
AGERPRES: Since when will this happen?
Nicu Marcu: Probably in a relatively short time, I say. Next we will contact the Government to go through the circuit as soon as possible. The sooner this Emergency Ordinance is approved, the sooner the situation in the market is resolved. Because we cannot reduce all the 3 markets that we regulate and supervise to only one product in the insurance area, this product which is a social product: RCA. The fact is that all the dissensions in the insurance market have been reduced to this product and this is not right.
În altă ordine de idei, revenind la asigurări, vreau să vă spun că în România este, aş spune prea mult anomalie, este o situaţie inversă decât în celelalte ţări din Uniunea Europeană. În contextul în care la noi interesul este atât de mare pentru acest produs RCA, în celelalte ţări portofoliul investiţional al companiilor de asigurări este asigurat de asigurările de viaţă, asigurările de sănătate şi asigurările de locuinţă. Lucruri care la noi, la unele societăţi, aceste produse le lipsesc din portofoliul sau sau sunt destul de mici.
AGERPRES: De ce credeţi că nu sunt interesaţi românii de asigurările de viaţă, de sănătate?
Nicu Marcu: Românii nu sunt interesaţi, aşa cred eu, din cauza lipsei de informaţii, sau a educaţiei financiare. Dacă ajungem să-i conştientizăm pe oameni de ce este bine să fie atenţi când îşi aleg o asigurare că nu tot timpul preţul cel mai mic e şi... că e nevoie să-şi facă asigurare pentru casă, având în vedere că e lege în vigoare şi, cu toate că legea este în vigoare, numai 20% dintre proprietarii de locuinţe şi-au asigurat locuinţele.
Pe cele două componente de asigurări de viaţă şi asigurări de sănătate lucrurile stau un pic mai bine, dar satisfăcător, nu bine, în sensul că şi aici populaţia nu e încă conştientizată că trebuie să facă acest lucru. În acest an au crescut un pic pe zona asta, dar nu atât de mult încât să fim... oricum, România e tot în coada clasamentului, ne batem cu Bulgaria pe locul ultim sau penultim.
AGERPRES Cam cât la sută dintre români îşi fac asigurare de viaţă?
Nicu Marcu: Nu pot să vă spun, dar pot să vă dau nişte date statistice.
AGERPRES: How can Romanians be persuaded to give money without knowing if they receive something in return or wishing not to receive something in return?
Nicu Marcu: It is not a pioneering action in our country. These things have been happening for decades or hundreds of years in other countries, we have to do nothing but take over these things that were done there and we have adapted them to us only, that people have to We are also aware that, as a teacher, people should be made aware of age groups so that they can be informed and educated financially according to their age, because if you don't start Educate them from an early age, in this sense, things will be very difficult later.
If he reaches a later age, it is harder to make a person aware, to tell him: come on, take out health insurance, when he knows that he has been healthy and thinks that nothing will ever happen to him. But it can happen anytime. So the solution is financial education.
AGERPRES: From the school benches?
Nicu Marcu: From school benches, from small school benches, grades 1-4, 5-8 and so on, but for each age group came with a program adapted for them, so that they can easily understand these things .
AGERPRES: And did the companies start? Or who needs to start?
Nicu Marcu: No. You will see that this year is the year of financial education. We, the Authority, together with the Institute of Financial Studies and together with those in the market, will have all year round some programs, not necessarily complex, but some quite important programs regarding these things. It is to be appreciated that the companies, the companies in the market have agreed to this and they also come with us.
AGERPRES: It's also in their interest, after all.
Nicu Marcu: Yes, it is also their interest and the interest of the citizens and the state. In this sense, you will see that from February to March we will have all kinds of actions, even in partnership with the education area, with the universities, with the school inspectorates, there are already partnerships, but there will be a curriculum that will be segmented into groups. age and which will spread throughout the country.
AGERPRES: Let's talk a little about the ASF institution. You announced restructuring, reorganization. When, how, what exactly will happen?
Nicu Marcu: The ASF institution is an institution among the other state institutions. In my opinion, the law is an extremely important institution of the state because it supervises three important markets that all three markets have a fairly important share in GDP, over 12%, and in this sense the institution must prove strong institution, so as to give, to leave the sensation, to leave to the investor and the beneficiaries of non-banking financial products the fact that the Romanian market is a stable market, that the institution can face the role established by law and in this sense it was not a fad which I had to do this reorganization, restructuring of the institution.
During these 5 months of mandate, a coordinated team of people from the institution did some case studies and analyzes so that we know which areas we act on, so that the authority works much more efficiently, we transform the image of the institution and show what good things makes the authority because as I said from the beginning because of this RCA product, which is at the market level is insignificant compared to the attributions and the whole area that the authority regulates, the image of the institution has always suffered.
So in this sense, this working group analyzed very well all the procedures, all the regulations and the legislation in force and proposed to the council a way to reorganize and restructure the institution. That doesn't mean people will go home. So, I'm not a fan of layoffs as long as people do their job and work for what they were hired for.
AGERPRES: How many employees does the authority have?
Nicu Marcu: Over 500, 500 and something, I think 540. In this sense you will see a supple institution, many management positions disappear, in order to have an integrated management and a quick decision on all three sectors, one position will appear. of general manager instead of director positions. There will be a directorate-general with a director-general who will have the role of integrating all the information and decisions taken in that sector so as to present a clear solution for the decisions taken by both the executive management and the board.
AGERPRES: You mean there will be three general managers?
Nicu Marcu: Yes, each sector, the pension sector will have a general manager, the insurance sector will have a general manager, the capital market will have a general manager.
AGERPRES: Exactly how many management positions are there now and how many positions will there be after the restructuring?
Nicu Marcu: That I will give you concretely how many there are. Driving positions have been greatly reduced. Unfortunately, we also reduced salaries.
AGERPRES: So those people will be moved to other less well paid positions?
Nicu Marcu: Those people whose management positions have been abolished are offered other positions within the Authority and they choose whether to accept or not. It is up to everyone.
AGERPRES: But why did this happen?
Nicu Marcu: I told you this earlier, in order to make the management acts more efficient in the institution, it is necessary for all the processes to be integrated, so that we can make informed decisions even more quickly, because they were so segmented and often when we had to make a decision it is thrown, it is not to me, to my direction, it is to the other direction, to the other direction it is not to the other either.
AGERPRES: It was chaos.
Nicu Marcu: No. No chaos. That's a lot to say. It was such a bird of prey and then it is in our interest to make the institution more efficient and to give it to investors, because I don't think the problem has ever been to not trust the authority, but to give the trust that the authority needs in the market.
AGERPRES: What exactly happened to DNA?
Nicu Marcu: I don't know. We are the Financial Supervisory Authority, we are not here at DNA. I don't know, I saw it too. I have nothing more to tell you than you have seen. An article appeared in the press saying that an employee had complained to DNA. I don't know more than you know, or I've seen. That employee did not identify himself to know who he is, DNA did not ask us for anything, and from the first days we had a meeting with all the journalists, with your colleagues I said: who has a problem that is other than Our regulation and control can make complaints to the prosecutor's office or elsewhere. I don't know who it is, that was in that article, otherwise I don't know.
AGERPRES: Don't you know about the irregularities described in that article? Didn't you do an internal check to see what it was about?
Nicu Marcu: The authority works constantly according to the procedures that, according to the legislation in force, and where I or we find things that are not in order, we fine them, or if the legislation is violated more than administratively we proceed according to the legislation in force , we can inform other state institutions, but you have every confidence that, at least during my term, this is exactly how things went.
AGERPRES: Did you look back at what happened?
Nicu Marcu: Yes, this is exactly what we are talking about, because we cannot summarize the three markets only at RCA. That was also my concern when I came here, because it's the culmination of clinging to only a very small part of the authority and leaving the other things. This will be resolved legislatively, because when this Emergency Ordinance is approved, things will be clarified once and for all and then there will no longer be this ping-pong that currently exists between the insured, services, insurers. and so on.
Yes, my concern from the beginning was to do some analysis to see where the causes are, in order to deal with the effects, to stay permanently on the petitions resolved - I moved people from other compartments to the Petitions Department to solve, more and more- that was not a solution for me. The solution was to find the cause that led here. For this reason, I have taken several measures, some of them internal regulations, others of legislative regulations, because, by approving these issues, things are resolved.
AGERPRES: Let's talk about Pillar 2 of pensions. Are you considering increasing the mandatory private pension rate?
Nicu Marcu: It is not our prerogative, it is the prerogative of the political area. If Parliament or the Government so decides, we are only managing the law as it is approved.
AGERPRES: And are there any intentions in this regard?
Nicu Marcu: I don't know. I know the same thing you saw: political statements or I had something through the government program. So I couldn't tell you more. What is certain is that I can tell you that the area of private pensions is a fairly well-regulated area, which has not suffered from problems over time. It was a syncope at one point in the past, but it didn't end there with that initiative.
At this moment I want to tell you that on Pillar 2 payments have already started. We intend to regulate in the next period the payment of pensions from Pillar 2. At this moment the payment is made: you can pay once all or divided by five years. We want, legislatively, to approve a law by which to pay effectively, even if he has retired, to pay monthly pensions, so that the pensioner continues to benefit from the returns that the accumulation can bring him, in the sense that he receives his the monthly pension, and the money that remains there produces a yield, lower, it is true, but still, until the end of the period, he receives in addition to the established pension something else.
I want to tell you one more thing about Pillar 2. It's one thing, I don't know if I can say unpleasant, but it's undesirable and we want to correct it. It is about the fact that over 90% of the contributors to Pillar 2 are randomly assigned. It is a worrying thing, because it is preferable for the one who becomes a contributor to Pillar 2 to choose his own pension fund administrator, depending on the yield, according to certain criteria. In this sense, we, the authority, even at your suggestion, of the press, of some colleagues from the press, we have modified the term for reporting the pension funds to the authorities. It was a half-yearly term, with an investment portfolio, and now the reporting is done quarterly, so that the one who chooses his pension fund is able to have all the details, so that he can choose the most suitable fund.
In other words, Pillar 3 is an optional pillar and there it is clear that the investment level, the number of participants, is lower, but with a fairly good return and this pillar.
A challenge for the next period for the pension area is occupational pensions. We are also taking a step in this direction, because we need to promote a law at the legislative level, so that we can regulate the area. The government, in the discussions we have had, is interested and, in order to stimulate this, it must come up with some tax deductions for the employer, so that the employer is interested in contributing to these occupational pensions, both he and the employee. So, in this sense, we are, I say, on the right track, so as to implement this pillar of occupational pensions.
AGERPRES. The Minister of Economy, Claudiu Năsui, said last week that the salaries from ASF are also formed from the commissions that the institution receives from each RCA concluded by the Romanians. This is true?
Nicu Marcu: Minister Claudiu Năsui is convinced that he knows very well, because he is also a parliamentarian and the law of the Financial Supervision Authority was made in the Parliament, and ASF is a self-financing institution. The Authority has not established its sources of funding. They were established by law. And it is clear that the revenues of the Financial Supervisory Authority are from commissions in all three markets.
I want to assure you that the salary in this institution is not far from the salary of a ministry in the area of European funds. And in this sense, in the next period we will publish salary scales by seniority or position, so you can see this. The authority does not function on its own but also functions from the point of view of remuneration only according to the law by which it was established. In this regard, we must keep in mind that, being a self-financing institution, it oversees three extremely important markets and its employees, I believe, must be well paid for the work they do.
And I want to tell you that in this institution there are extremely well-trained people and if the institution does not pay them well there is a risk that the market will offer them and we will wake up that we do not stay with the people we need. So, as such, I think this is a false problem with the exorbitant salaries at the Financial Supervisory Authority. The salaries from ASF, I repeat, are clearly established by law. Nicu Marcu did not set them, nor did my predecessors set any salaries outside the legislation in force.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/3bWQNFu