Skopje, 8 April 2025
“Joining SEPA (Single Euro Payment Area) will enable faster and cheaper two-way payments, both outflows and inflows. The National Bank is already undertaking activities to facilitate inflow payments, including the inflows based on income earned abroad. In that regard, as envisaged, the inflows from abroad will be made available to the payee's payment account instantly, or on the next business day, at the latest, without submitting documents on the causes of the inflow for most of the inflows from abroad, with the exception of certain inflows related to capital transactions, which are legally restricted until the country's entry into the European Union.”
This was said by Igor Velickovski, Director of the Sector of Financial Market Operations and Payment Systems of the National Bank, in the interview with Makedonsko Radio, as a response to numerous questions asked by young people who work for foreign companies but receive their wages on their foreign exchange accounts in the country.
Velickovski emphasized that by joining SEPA, the transfer of funds in euros will become even more simplified and faster, enabling both citizens and companies, by using their mobile applications or e-banking, to make payments in euros easily by entering a minimum set of data in the payment order.
"To transfer funds, only the necessary data for the execution of the payment are required, such as the name and account number of the payer and the payee, the amount and the basis of payment, which will significantly facilitate the initiation of payments by citizens and companies at any time and place. Payments via credit transfers in euros from any member country will be executed within a few hours during the day, while instant payments in euros in less than 10 seconds," Velickovski said, referring to the latest data from the National Bank's payment statistics for 2024, which shows that 2 out of 3 electronic payment orders in denars in the country by citizens were executed via mobile applications. At the same time, the simplicity and speed of payments are increasingly important to citizens, which is why the use of mobile applications has recorded an annual growth of 47% in the number, or 72% in the value of transactions.