Skopje, 7 April 2023 

“The new Law on Payment Services and Payment Systems provides higher protection to both citizens and companies. It envisages clear informing of the citizens before signing a framework agreement with payment services providers for the conditions and the amount of the fee for their use. It also limits, for the first time, the amount of fees that payment service providers charge to each other for using payment cards, issued by one provider of POS terminals, and installed with the merchants of another provider, as a cost that affects the final price of the services for the payments. The amount of these fees will be gradually reduced and at the beginning of 2025 it must not exceed 0.2% of the value of the payment transaction performed with a debit, i.e. 0.3% with a credit payment card. This will equal the limitation with that currently applied in the EU. This would also affect the price paid by merchants for using POS terminals.” This was pointed out by the Manager of the Payment Systems Department at the National Bank, Igor Velichkovski, in an interview for Bloomberg Adria. 

Velichkovski emphasizes that the conditions under which payment services are offered to users, and especially to citizens, need to be understood by them in a simple way. “For this purpose, the framework agreement for payment services signed by the payment service provider and the citizen, as a consumer, will be in a standardized form with a compulsory set of information. Before signing, the provider needs to inform the citizen of the conditions under which they can use its payment services, as well as to provide them with information on the amount of fees for the most frequently used services. After concluding the framework agreement, the provider is required, at least once a year, to submit to the consumer a report on the fees it charged for the use of payment services”, the Manager says.

The Manager of the Payment Systems Department at the National Bank also points out that the new regulatory framework takes into account the companies' interests, as it also limits the amount of fees charged by the provider that issued the payment card to the provider that installed the POS terminal with the merchant. It is expected that this will reduce the costs for providers that install POS terminals with merchants, which would also reduce the fees for merchants. Reduced fees in turn would encourage merchants to install new POS terminals, which would ultimately contribute to greater use of funds on the payment accounts of citizens, as well as to reduction of cash payment.