Skopje, 24 October 2024 

The implementation of standards and regulations that the central banks in the Eurosystem use in the consumer protection area, as well as the contemporary best practices for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the processes in this area, is one of the commitments of the National Bank. Therefore, within the second phase of the Regional Programme for strengthening the institutional capacity of the central banks in the Western Balkans, financed by the European Union, in the past few days, bilateral cooperation between the National Bank of the Republic of North Macedonia and the National Bank of Slovakia has been realized.

An expert mission was carried out, within which representatives from the Consumer Protection and Financial Education Department at the National Bank, together with experts from the National Bank of Slovakia, exchanged experiences on the organizational set-up, regulation and functional aspects of the process of protecting financial services consumers. The experts presented in details their experience of the established regulatory framework at the level of the European Union and the regulation of the National Bank of Slovakia, the internal procedures of processing complaints from users of financial products and services and the implementation of consumer protection supervision.

The second phase of the Regional Program funded by the European Union (EU) to strengthen the institutional capacity of central banks in the Western Balkans is a three-year program coordinated by the German Central Bank, in partnership with nineteen central banks of the European System of Central Banks and the European Central Bank. For the implementation of this program, the EU allocated Euro 3 million from the instrument for pre-accession assistance (IPA III).