“Albania launches fast payments in November” - Bregu: Infrastructure almost ready. A non-bank financial institution, part of SEPA in August
Instant payments are expected to become a reality for Albania in November of this year, when the implementation of the instant payment system officially begins. In an interview with Scan Television, the Director of Payment Systems, Accounting and Finance at the Bank of Albania, Ledia Bregu, stated that after the work done by the Bank of Albania to fulfill the technical requirements for the connection with TIPS, a clone of the Bank of Italy, citizens will soon be able to make transfers within a few seconds, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.
When you want to buy a product, the merchant will provide you with a QR code that you can scan with your phone and make the payment immediately, without having to take out your card or using a POS terminal. Currently, two other countries in the region have started implementing the fast payment system.
"The most current objective is November, which means in November, coordinated with the entire banking and non-banking market, we will go live with the Instant Payment infrastructure, which means much faster payments in real time, within a maximum of 20 seconds, on the TIPS-clone platform, which is a platform offered by the Bank of Italy, identical to the ECB platform, of the European Union, which is the TIPS platform. A very big goal is also the competitiveness of card transactions, so models will be offered, a QR code payment model, which enables merchants to offer electronic payments, regardless of which bank or non-bank they choose, in a way and in a form or at a much cheaper cost than card and POS transactions", said Bregu.
Starting from October last year, banks would make cross-border transfers at a cost 5-10 times lower through SEPA. The Director of Payment Systems stated that in early August, a non-bank financial institution would be added to the Single Euro Payments Area.
"Fortunately, we are the first in the Balkans to have a non-bank financial institution, which goes live at the beginning of August, which will offer SEPA credit transfers. Their desire and need to make those SEPA credit transfers to benefit has been quite large during the integration process in this unique area. It is somewhat more complex than banks, as they are smaller financial institutions, they have an unproven credibility, so it is a much more complex exercise for them to show, let's say, their counterparties in European payment systems that they are just as safe, just as effective, efficient to offer such a scheme", said the Director of Payment Systems.
Both of these systems increase financial inclusion and reduce transaction costs for businesses and consumers.
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