Annual publication of the List of Monetary Financial Institutions in the accession countries as at end-December 2002

The "List of Monetary Financial Institutions in the accession countries" (generally referred to as the "List of AC MFIs") is published today by the European Central Bank (ECB).

This publication relates to the Monetary Financial Institutions sector (MFI sector) in the accession countries as at end-December 2002. The List of AC MFIs is published at the beginning of each calendar year; this is the third in the series.

The aim of the "List of AC MFIs" is to produce, for statistical purposes, a comprehensive and homogeneous list of MFIs in the 12 accession countries that are preparing for membership of the European Union (i.e. Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia). In order to achieve a high degree of consistency and comparability of the information, all countries contributing to the "List of AC MFIs" have adhered to the ECB's harmonised definition of MFIs as far as possible.

The accurate recording of the MFI population in the accession countries is a particularly important contribution to the preparation of the compilation of harmonised monetary aggregates.

This publication will be made available under the item "Publications", in the "Monetary Financial Institutions" part of the "MFIs and Eligible assets" section on the ECB's website (http://www.ecb.europa.eu/mfi/).

A hard copy of the latest version of the List of MFIs in the accession countries can be obtained from the ECB's Press and Information Division and from any of the accession country or EU national central banks.