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European Western Balkans
Economy & Business

Western Balkan countries are taking further steps to join the Single Euro Payments Area

European Central Bank; Photo: DXR /Wikipedia

The process of joining the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) by the Western Balkan countries continues in 2025, with the establishment of the SEPA Steering Group. Adherence of Montenegrin and Albanian financial institutions to the SEPA payment schemes will be enabled starting from April 2025. National Bank of Serbia confirmed for our portal that it expects a decision on this country’s membership in March.

The first meeting of the SEPA Steering Group, organised by the Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations of the European Commission (DG NEAR), was held on 24 January in an online format. It was attended by central bank governors of the Western Balkans and Moldova, as well as representatives of the European Payments Council (EPC), the World Bank, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union (DG FISMA).

The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is a pan-European initiative, launched in 2008 to simplify, accelerate and harmonise electronic payments while reducing costs as much as possible. The backbone of SEPA is a set of rules and standards for making cashless payments.

For a country to join SEPA, it must comply legally and technically with the regulations of the European Union in the domain of payment systems, and a very important role in such a process is played by national banks, which, on behalf of the countries, submit applications for accession of SEPA

The establishment of the SEPA Steering Group aims to bring together the central banks of the Western Balkans and Moldova, the EPC, the ECB and the World Bank, under the auspices of the European Commission.

Considering that Western Balkan economies are at different stages of alignment with SEPA standards, DG NEAR emphasised the importance of coordination and mutual support in this process.

When it comes to the Western Balkans countries, in late November 2024, the European Payments Council approved the inclusion of Montenegro and Albania in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) payment schemes, expanding the initiative’s geographical scope to 38 countries, including EU and non-EU members such as the UK and Switzerland.

According to the EPC, adherence for financial institutions in Montenegro and Albania is set to begin in April 2025.

The National Bank of Serbia (NBS) stated for European Western Balkans that there are no additional criteria that the Republic of Serbia needs to meet to join the Single Euro Payments Area.

“For its part, Serbia has carried out all necessary activities in order to meet all formal, regulatory criteria for participation in SEPA”, the National Bank of Serbia says.

According to NBS, the European Payments Council could make a decision on Serbia’s accession to SEPA in early March, which would mean that banks in Serbia would have the same deadlines for the start of the realization of payments under SEPA schemes as banks in Albania and Montenegro.

The National Bank of North Macedonia has earlier confirmed for EWB that “in the capacity of a regulatory and supervisory institution for the payment service providers in the country” it submitted a formal request for the country’s accession to SEPA in July 2024.

On the other hand, The Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina clarified for our portal that the current state of legislation in that country did not meet the requirements necessary to access SEPA, and, therefore, the application for the membership had not been submitted.

According to the media reports, the Central Bank of Kosovo submitted the pre-application for SEPA membership in December 2024.

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