TAIEX Expert Mission – Evaluation of the Economic Resilience of the Fully Funded Pension Insurance

As part of the planned activities aimed at achieving the strategic goal – enhancing the institutional capacity to strengthen the supervisory and regulatory role in the fully funded pension insurance, the Agency for Supervision of Fully Funded Pension Insurance (MAPAS) implemented an expert mission project through the European Union (EU) TAIEX instrument.

This project represents a continuation of the previous mission, through which MAPAS established a risk management framework for financial stability and macroprudential policy.
The main goal of this expert mission was to implement a risk management technique to assess the potential impact of adverse events or scenarios (macroeconomic and financial shocks) on the financial condition and resilience of the fully funded pension insurance in the Republic of North Macedonia.
The timely and efficient identification of systemic risks and the undertaking of measures to prevent and mitigate their impact on the financial system are new responsibilities of MAPAS, stemming from the Law on Financial Stability and the Strategy for the Implementation of Macroprudential Policy in the Republic of North Macedonia.

The expert mission was carried out between 27 and 31 October 2025 by experts Ivana Herczeg, Head of the Department for Systemic Risks and Consumer Protection, and Mario Bambulović, Head of the Systemic Risks Unit at the Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency (HANFA). A total of 11 MAPAS employees participated in the mission.

During the mission, participants were introduced to the core concepts and objectives of resilience testing within the EU and the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) framework, as well as the methodology and application of sensitivity and scenario analysis.
The mission further elaborated on the objectives and approaches of pension fund stress testing, the identification of macroeconomic and financial shocks, and MAPAS’s supervisory and management activities in the context of financial stability.
It also covered the use of deterministic and stochastic models, along with practical case studies, market shock simulations, result analyses, and integration of findings into supervisory processes.

The expert mission contributed to strengthening MAPAS’s capacities in risk management and pension fund resilience testing, in line with European standards, representing an important step forward in enhancing the monitoring processes of the fully funded pension insurance, as well as in further alignment with EU standards in financial stability and risk management.