TIRANA, January 30 /ATA/ The Bank of Albania has begun work on establishing a fast payment system, which will enable payments and transfers to be made within a few seconds.
Ledia Bregu, Director of the Payment Systems, Accounting and Finance Department at the Bank of Albania, explained in a statement to the media that payment services in the country are going through a phase of significant changes.
“With membership in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), the costs of international transfers in euros will undergo a drastic reduction,” she emphasized.
Bregu noted that, “Our country carries out over 50% of trade (import-export) with EU countries, which has a considerable cost of transactions and the positive impacts of fast payments will be materialized for Albanian businesses and citizens.”
Bregu also said that payments will be faster and cheaper, as will remittances and payments in the tourism sector.
“So every transaction between Albania and the EU and vice versa will have a 5-fold reduction in costs,” she said.
Bregu announced that, “Beginning from April, the second-tier commercial banks have the door open to apply to each of the SEPA schemes, which they judge to be the most appropriate. The most typical case is the “credit transfer”, the simplest to apply. Meanwhile, the BoA has made it possible for banks to be technically ready to apply, while in October it is expected to start transactions in the SEPA.” /j.p/p.s./
