Skopje, 8 November 2020

The transposition of the directives and regulations of the EU, which currently takes place at a faster pace, will create a competitive environment for quantitative and qualitative growth of payment services, will additionally encourage the digital transformation of payments channels, especially with the so-called open banking and will increase the confidence due to the expected higher level of safety when making payments. At the same time, conditions will be created for opening the market of payment services and for new types of non-bank entities such as payment institutions, electronic money institutions and various models of fintech companies that will be licensed and supervised by the National Bank.

This was pointed out by the Vice Governor of the National Bank, Emilija Nacevska, in an interview for Antoris magazine, published also on the web portal “Banking”. According to her, once the new Law on Payment Services and Payment Systems is adopted, conditions will be created in our economy for significant changes in the payment landscape in relation to its enhanced digital transformation.

"The new regulation will enable liberalization of the payment services market, encouraging of innovations and strengthening of competition, as well as strengthening of the rights of consumers for their informing by payment services providers about the conditions for using the services. Together with the Ministry of Finance, we are working on the Law, and the bylaws that are within the competence of the National Bank are already being prepared. "If the possibilities that will be given by the regulation are used in the next years, then we will be able to constantly follow the trends." - Nacevska said.

According to her, both in global terms and in our country, the conditions during the pandemic contribute to accelerated change in the habits with respect to payments, whereby the citizens increasingly enjoy the benefits of digital payment channels. Moreover, especially in the second quarter of this year, there is an evident high annual growth of the number of the citizens' payments with payment cards at the points of sale on the Internet, which amounts to 169.6% and is fivefold higher than the annual growth of 32% registered in the same quarter last year. In the whole first half-year, as Nacevska points out, there was an impressive annual growth of the citizens' online payments with payment cards of 122.6%.

"The intensification of online trade by the citizens certainly contributes to a change in the strategies of companies, i.e. they strive for greater involvement in this segment of the business. We notice this through the increased number of new points of sale for online trade which at the end of June compared to the end of December last year increased by 203 new online shops, which is three times higher compared to the growth in the same period of 2019 when 68 new points of sale on the Internet were registered.” - the Vice Governor said. 

Nacevska expects that the change in payment habits by using modern channels will also be maintained after the pandemic, whereby it would be even better if in the coming period modern channels start to be used by most of the citizens who have not used them before.

"For that purpose, further investments are needed in the financial education, but also further proactive attitude of the banks in the communication with their clients and in the design of their products. It is extremely important for companies to invest even more in e-commerce. "I sincerely hope that this will happen, taking into consideration the trend in the past months, but also the fact that even before the pandemic, as the data show, there was an upward trend in this area.” - the Vice Governor said.

In her interview, she appeals for using the new payment methods within the possibilities, indicating that this saves resources and time and achieves efficiency, and protects both own and public health in the current circumstances.

The interview is available here.