TIRANA, May 28 /ATA/ The law on opening accounts in second-level banks for the needy, retirees and the disabled took effect as of April 3, providing zero-cost services. But financial inclusion in rural areas remains a challenge for the Bank of Albania.
Present at the meeting of Parliamentary Economy and Finance Committee, the Governor of the Bank of Albania, Gent Sejko, said that, “the law has been recently enacted and we are following it up, in order to keep track of the concrete results in the future.”
Sejko also focused on the progress of this process in rural areas.
“Rural areas that are not covered by bank affiliates will be referred to affiliates in the nearest cities. We are working on financial inclusion in rural areas, through the development of digitalization,” he said.
“We are working to increase access to financing in rural areas through digitalization, as mobile phones are widely used in rural areas and one of the tools that can help this process is mobile payment. That’s why we have advanced digitalization, we have licensed several companies that cooperate with banks and aim for the open banking process to be completed within the first 6 months of this year, in order to benefit rural areas through digital services,” said Sejko.
The governor informed that the Bank of Albania has a plan with the Albanian Post, for the elderly in rural areas, to benefit from the law “On the payment account with basic features” (zero cost account).
According to him, the plan aims to turn the Post Office into one of the payment instruments, which will serve with bank transfer functions especially for rural areas.
“Through this law, we aim to promote financial inclusion, reduce the use of cash payments in the economy and increase digitalization”, said Sejko.
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