One more term for Hanfa Board

The Parliament of the Republic of Croatia has accepted the Government proposal and decided that the current Board of the Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency (Hanfa) will continue its work in another six-year term. The Board will be led by President Ante Žigman, while the members of the Board will be Jurica Jednačak, Antun Palarić, Tomislav Ridzak and Anamarija Staničić, who will succeed former member Ilijana Jeleč.

Hanfa is a regulatory and supervisory authority whose competence includes a wide range of financial non-banking services, from capital market regulation and supervision, through insurance market to investment and pension funds, factoring and leasing. Hanfa is in charge of supervising the assets of the financial non-banking sector, which amounted to EUR 111.2 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2023, and accounted for 29.6 percent of the assets of the entire financial system of the Republic of Croatia.

Ante Žigman, PhD, has been the President of Hanfa Board since February 2018, and he significantly intensified Hanfa's international activities in his first mandate. Since June 2023, he has been a member of the Management Board of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), while he had already been appointed Chair of EIOPA’s Risks and Financial Stability Steering Committee. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) as the representative of the CEET region (Central and Eastern Europe and Transcaucasia). Some of his earlier positions include being Assistant Minister of Finance for macroeconomic analysis and planning, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Finance, Vice President of the Committee for Fiscal Policy of the Croatian Parliament, and member of the Economic and Financial Committee's Sub-Committee on EU sovereign Debt markets (ESDM). He spent a signifying part of his career at the Croatian National Bank, where he worked at the Office of the Governor until being appointed to the current position.

Jurica Jednačak served as President of the Business Activities and Financial Markets Intermediation Association with the Croatian Chamber of Economy from 2013 until becoming a member of Hanfa Board. He graduated from the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb. From 1997 to 2000, he was an associate of the Institute for International Relations, and since 2001 he worked as the Head of the Securities Listing Department at the Zagreb Stock Exchange. From 2003 to 2006, he was Assistant Head of the Corporate Treasury Division at Hrvatski Telekom, after which he got employed with Zagrebačka banka where he performed the function of the Head of Brokerage Service for Corporate Clients, while in 2007, he became the Head of Brokerage. He held this position until February 2018, when he became a member of Hanfa Board.

Antun Palarić became Judge of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia in 2009, and in 2018 he continued his career in Hanfa as member of the Board. He graduated from the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, and later passed a bar examination and a notarial examination. He started his professional career as a legal trainee and court counsellor at the Municipal Court in Dugo Selo, and later the President of the Municipal Court in Klanjec. From 1992 to 1995 he was the Chief of Staff to the Minister of Justice and Public Administration and the Chief of Staff to the Minister of Public Administration, and from 1995 he served as Assistant Minister of Public Administration. From 1999 to 2000, he was the Head of the State Directorate for Public Administration and Local Self-Government, after which he served as the Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. In 2004, he became State Secretary at the Central State Administration Office, and in 2009 the Judge of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia. He has also served as a member or president of numerous state commissions and boards, such as the Government Commission for the settlement of disputes about the rights of counties, cities and municipalities, Government Commission for Borders of Local Self-Government Units, the Croatian Archives Council etc.

Tomislav Ridzak, PhD, was appointed member of Hanfa Board in 2018, coming to this function from the Croatian National Bank as Head of Financial Stability Department. He held this post from 2012 to 2018, and worked at the Croatian National Bank since 2009. After finishing his undergraduate and graduate studies at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, he got a master's degree in economics and finance from the University of York, United Kingdom, and a doctoral degree from the Juraj Dobrila University in Pula. He started his professional career as a junior researcher at the Institute of Economics in Zagreb. From 2003 he worked for companies Interkapital vrijednosni papiri and ICAM as the Head of Asset Management, Head of Portfolio, and a securities trader. 

Anamarija Staničić was the Head of Regulatory Harmonisation and International Cooperation Division at Hanfa from 2018 until being appointed member of Hanfa Board. After graduating from the Faculty of Economics and Business in Zagreb, she joined Hanfa as a trainee in November 2006. After that, she progressed from the position of expert associate, via positions of senior and chief advisor to the position of head of division. As part of this function, she has so far been responsible for national and EU regulations and Hanfa's international cooperation. Among other things, she is Hanfa's representative in several committees of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and working groups of the Council of the EU.