ISET

Giorgi Kadagidze, former Governor of the Georgian National Bank at ISET: How Are Banks Different from Bakeries?

Details

Why do central banks regulate commercial banks and not that of, say, bakeries? This was the fundamental question Giorgi Kadagidze, a former governor of the National Bank of Georgia, tried to answer during his presentation for ISET students, faculty, and executives enrolled in ISET’s Finance for Professionals course on Tuesday, March 15.
According to Mr.Kadagidze, banks, unlike bakeries, operate with other people’s money. They are taking deposits and are transforming them into loans. Mr.Kadagidze used an ordinary balance sheet to demonstrate some of the basic principles of banking regulation: “fit and proper” (essentially to make sure that a bank’s shareholders and principals are not thieves); capital adequacy (how much own capital does a bank has to compensate depositors in case some of its loans go bad); asset quality (for instance, are loans too concentrated in a particular sector), and liquidity (does the bank have enough cash to handle an increase in short-term obligations).

How Efficient are Georgia’s Regulations in the Electricity and Natural Gas Sectors?

Details
ISET Hosting a Workshop with Georgian and Lithuanian Energy Regulators

Regulations in the energy sector are there in order to ensure improvements in efficiency and service quality. They are essential because many actors in the energy sector of any country are state companies and/or natural monopolies for which efficiency and quality of service are somewhat foreign concepts.
An EU-funded twinning project "Strengthening capacities of the regulatory cost audit and market monitoring" brings together the regulatory authorities of Georgia and Lithuania in order for them to learn from each other’s experience (and mistakes). As part of this project, on March 15, 2016, ISET hosted a workshop involving energy regulators from both countries. The Lithuanian National Commission for Energy Control and Prices (NCC) was represented by Vygantas Vaitkus. The Georgian National Energy and Water Supply Regulatory Commission (GNERC) was represented by three ISET alumni (class 2011): Giorgi Kelbakiani, Nikoloz Sumbadze and Irakli Galdava, chief specialists with GNERC’s electricity and gas departments.

Our Partners