The Bulgarian Parliament officially discharged Thursday the new financial supervision head, Stoyan Mavrodiev, as a MP.

Mavrodiev, a deputy from the ruling GERB party, resigned as a MP after he was elected on Wednesday to head the Bulgarian Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) for six years.

Mavrodiev, who was the Deputy Chair of the Bulgarian Parliamentary Committee on Economic Policy, Energy and Tourism and member of the Budget and Finance Committee, was elected with 119 votes in favor and 24 votes against. He replaces Petar Chobanov who has been in charge of the FSC for a year.

Currently, Bulgaria’s banking and crediting sector is supervised by the Bulgarian National Bank, whereas the insurance firms, retirement funds, and other non-banking financial companies are monitored by the Financial Supervision Commission. The Commission is independent and is accountable to the Parliament.

In April, the Bulgarian government decided to shrink the size of the Commission from 7 to 5 members. The suggestion was upheld by the Economy Committee of the Bulgarian Parliament, which approved draft amendments of the Financial Supervision Commission Act.

Members of the ruling party GERB, including the Chair of the Parliamentary Finance Committee Menda Stoyanova, have put forth the idea of setting up a unified body for financial supervision in Bulgaria by the end of 2010, merging banking and non-banking supervision. However, no specific plans have been made public yet.