Skopje, 13 March 2023 

The National Bank is actively involved in the activities of the working groups in the preparation of the negotiation positions for our country’s accession to the European Union, by individual chapters and areas and in the current bilateral phase of the legislation screening with the European Union. Within Cluster 2-Internal market, Chapter-9 Financial Services in particular, Frosina Celeska and Lidija Pushevska Markovska from Banking Regulations and Resolution Department delivered their presentations in the area of Banking and financial conglomerates, while Igor Velickovski from Payment Systems Department delivered a presentation in the area of Payment systems and payment services.

In the area of Banking and financial conglomerates, the National Bank representatives presented the implementation of the capital requirements directive and regulation for credit institutions, implementation of the bank recovery and resolution directive and directive on restructuring and insolvency.  In this domain, the high level of compliance of the domestic banking regulation and supervision was highlighted, which is confirmed by the Decision of the European Commission of 1 October 2021 on the equivalence of the supervisory and regulatory requirements in the Republic of North Macedonia to the ones prescribed by the adequate prudential requirements and standards in the EU. The current conditions and trends in the domestic banking system were presented at the meeting, as well as a detailed description of the standards and practices applied by the National Bank in supervision. Future plans in terms of the National Bank’s ongoing activities for monitoring and harmonization with all the novelties in EU, which refer to the regulation and supervision of credit institutions were also discussed. Particular emphasis was placed on the activities undertaken in order to apply the requirements related to the establishment of bank resolution, both in terms of providing adequate legal framework harmonized with bank recovery and resolution directive, and building adequate organizational and human resources for the implementation of this function by the National Bank.

In the area of Payment systems and payment services, representatives of the National Bank presented the solutions in the Law on Payment Services and Payment Systems which provide settlement finality of the transfer orders submitted by the payment systems participants, ensuring greater security for the citizens and companies in performing their payments.  The meeting gave a review of the most representative services, i.e. services that citizens mostly use through payment accounts, established by the National Bank and for which the payment services providers shall inform the National Bank on the fees they collect from customers. In this light, it was emphasized that the National Bank will enable comparison of fees on the most representative service by the end of September this year, whereby the citizens will be able to compare the fees charged by each provider and decide on the most favorable offer for making payments. Generally speaking, the solutions in the Law on Payment Services and Payment Systems and bylaws adopted by the National Bank Council towards the end of 2022 ensure full compliance with the requirements of the EU Directive on settlement finality and EU Directive on the comparability of fees related to payment accounts, payment account switching and access to payment accounts with basic features, which were on the agenda of this bilateral meeting.