The Polish Financial Supervision Authority (UKNF) and Spanish supervision body - Spanish Directorate General for Insurance and Pension Funds (DGSFP) were selected according to the decision of the European Commission to implement the institutional building project Strengthening of the administrative capacity of the Financial Supervision Commission to implement the acquis in the field of securities, insurance and pensions for the Bulgarian Financial Supervision Commission (FSC).

The Project Leaders were:

• Adam Płociński - Director of the Financial Market Development and Cross-sector Policy, the UKNF
• Luis Bautista - Spanish Directorate General for Insurance and Pension Funds.

The UKNF implemented project as a senior partner with assistance of the Spanish junior partner, bearing in line with the UE rules the sole responsibility for fulfilling the project assumptions and disbursement of the financial resources.

The principle aim of the twinning project, which budget amounted to 1.3 mln euro, was providing support in implementation of the EU directives and standards in the field of supervision of the financial market in Bulgaria through developing, strengthening and harmonization of law, structures and controlling procedures in line with requirement resulting from accession of Bulgaria to the European Union since 1 January 2007. The scope of the assistance for the Bulgarian supervisory covered issues relating to the financial, insurance and pension schemes market.

The overall objective of the twinning project was preparation of the Bulgarian non-banking financial sector for its accession to the single European market of financial services. The project’s purpose was a "strong and efficient supervisory and regulatory framework for the cooperation of the non-bank financial sector at the level of the EU standards".

The project tasks were implemented by over 110 experts from Poland, Spain and 7 other EU Member States (Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Great Britain, Greece, France and Hungary) in the course of carried out over 200 2-5 days expert missions. Additionally, there were conducted extra missions to Sofia regarding eg. risk based supervision, development of an integrated supervision strategy or carrying out international trainings for the staff of the Bulgarian FSC. Several study visits were also organized in Polish, Spanish, German and Hungarian supervision bodies, as well as in institutions collaborating with the UKNF, eg. the National Depository for Securities (KDPW), the Insurance Guarantee Fund and the Polish Chamber of Insurance.

Due to the fact that the Polish Insurance and Pension Funds Supervision Commission (UKNUiFE), replaced by the UKNF, was one of the first institutions in Poland providing the EU assistance in the form of twinning, the implementation of the project required creation of new procedures and adoption of the national regulations to the requirements of the EU regulations.

The direct benefits of the project were: elaborating the strategy of non-banking financial sector supervision for Bulgarian FSC; developing  regulatory framework; preparation and introduction rules and procedures regarding international cooperation, international trainings and conferences.

The project was implemented between December 2005 and November 2007.