Presentation within the twinning project Strengthening of the institutional capacity of the National Bank in the process of its accession to the ESCB
The National Bank intensifies activities expected to increase transparency of payment service providers regarding the fees related to the most representative payment services offered to citizens. This will be a new regulation in this area created by transposing the relevant EU legislation. It is expected to increase the level of consumer protection in negotiating for and using payment services, and to further strengthen competition among service providers. This is the main focus of some of the activities within the EU-funded twinning project Strengthening of the institutional capacity of the National Bank in the process of its accession to the European System of Central Banks. In the past few days, there was an intensive exchange of views and experiences between experts from our National Bank and the Croatian National Bank as our twinning partner in this project. Today, an online event was held presenting the results of the implementation of the Directive on payment accounts in Croatia, focusing on the transparency of payment service providers achieved by making a comparative overview of fees available on the websites and through a mobile application, which is also planned to be included in our new regulation.
“The new regulatory package in the payment area requires from payment service providers to provide consumers with more information on the fees applied in relation to payment accounts in a standardized presentation format, and the National Bank will make them available on its website in order to facilitate the comparability of fees charged to consumers by various payment service providers”, said Vice Governor Emilija Nacevska in her welcoming address.
“Тhanks to the EU support and commitment of colleagues of the NBMK, the MOF and other country’s institutions as well as European experts, the draft Law on payment services and payment systems is drafted and almost ready for open consultation. The EU Delegation hopes that the Law will be adopted in the near future in order to extend the benefit of the PSD to the citizens of MK.” – said Alessandro Zanotta, EU Delegation economic adviser in the operations’ section in his address.
The presentation also showed experiences that proved that our central bank is on the right track by creating conditions and rules for proactive transparent approach of payment service providers, drawing up uniform rules on the provision of payment services and information to citizens. The presentation of the Croatian National Bank highlighted the importance and the benefit for the citizens from standardizing the way information is made publicly available, which will ensure better comparability of the payment services offered.
This online event brought up a number of questions prompted by past EU experiences, showing that the National Bank adequately uses the EU support in this area to speed up payment infrastructure modernization through this project in line with the European trends. This event was attended by representatives of many institutions and organizations, banks, savings houses, fintech companies, payment systems, scientific community and academia. It was also attended by representatives of the EU embassies who proactively monitor the National Bank’s efforts and achievements in establishing European standards in the domestic payment infrastructure.
The twinning project Strengthening the capacity of the National Bank in the process of its accession to the ESCB focuses not only on payment services and systems, but also on financial accounts statistics, bank regulation and supervision and research related to policy analysis.
The National Bank project activities have been implemented in partnership with Deutsche Bundesbank and the Croatian National Bank, with some of them involving experts from the central banks of Belgium, Greece, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and the Netherlands.
