site.btaAll Insurance, Pension, and Investment Accounts to Be Automatically Converted to Euro from January 1

Vasil Golemanski, Chair of the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC), said all insurance policies, pension fund accounts and investment positions will be automatically converted from lev to euro on January 1, meaning that no contracts or additional agreements need to be signed in connection with Bulgaria's euro adoption. He was speaking at an information session in Blagoevgrad, part of the National Information Campaign on the introduction of the euro.

In all three sectors regulated by the FSC - pension insurance companies, insurance companies and the capital market - every contract, every pension fund account, every insurance policy and all investment positions will be automatically recalculated in euro as of January 1. Policyholders, account holders and holders of shares or bonds do not need to take any steps. All conversions will be carried out by the respective companies and by the Central Depository where investment activities are concerned, Golemanski said.

If anyone is asked, in connection with the euro adoption, to re-sign a civil liability or other insurance policy, additional agreements for managing investment portfolios, or extra agreements related to pension fund accounts, this could indicate attempted fraud. Anyone targeted by such dishonest practices should report them to the FSC.

The automatic conversion of accounts will follow the standard method for BGN/EUR conversion up to two decimal places, with two exceptions for the sectors overseen by the FSC. The first exception concerns investment funds, where net asset value will be recalculated up to four decimal places, with rounding applied from the fifth to the fourth decimal place. The second exception concerns pension fund accounts, where the value of a single unit will be rounded to five decimal places, using the sixth decimal place for indication.

The euro changeover will happen at the official exchange rate of BGN 1.95583 per EUR 1.

The Information Campaign is a joint effort of the responsible institutions, including the Ministry of Finance, the Bulgarian National Bank, the Ministry of Economy and Industry, the Consumer Protection Commission, the National Revenue Agency, the Financial Supervision Commission, and the National Social Security Institute.