Nenad Petrović, Director of the Payment System Sector at the National Bank of Serbia (NBS), announced that Serbia is soon to join the SEPA system, the common European payments system and the Single Euro Payments Area. This will lead to more affordable and efficient payment transactions for Serbian citizens and businesses. The European Commission is expected to confirm Serbia’s readiness by early December.
Petrović emphasized that Serbia has completed all necessary steps on its end for joining the SEPA system and is now awaiting the European Commission’s opinion. Once received, the formal application process will proceed quickly. He also highlighted that the World Bank experts have acknowledged Serbia’s advanced payment system, noting that Serbia’s application draft was the most detailed and comprehensive they had seen.
In recent years, the NBS has worked intensively on aligning its regulations with EU standards. These alignments cover areas such as payment services, banking operations and anti-money laundering measures, which are prerequisites for joining the SEPA system. These regulatory updates have been submitted to the European Commission and the European Payments Council for review.
Serbia has also been collaborating with the European Central Bank (ECB) to connect the country’s instant payment system with the ECB’s system. The goal is to provide the same level of service for international payments that the NBS system has offered domestically for the past six years. Once this connection is made, international payment processing times will be reduced to just a few seconds, compared to the current timeframe of the same or the next business day, depending on when the payment order is submitted.
The SEPA system has already been adopted by Albania and Montenegro, while other countries in the region are in various stages of joining. However, as Petrović pointed out, the formal inclusion of a country into the SEPA system is just the first phase. The second phase, which is more technically challenging, involves individual banks connecting to the European payment system for SEPA payments. Montenegro, which joined SEPA last week, has completed the first phase, but its banks will not be able to submit requests for SEPA membership until April next year, with payments expected to be possible from October 2025, provided the banks meet the necessary technical requirements.
Petrović is optimistic that the second phase for Serbian banks will be much shorter, as many are already technically ready to apply SEPA standards. Furthermore, Serbia plans to connect its instant payment system directly to the ECB’s system, reducing the need for each bank to individually integrate, which will lower the technical adaptation costs for banks and, consequently, reduce fees for users.
The central bank’s goal is to minimize costs associated with joining the SEPA system, ensuring that banks can offer lower transaction fees to citizens and businesses. As Petrović noted, reducing fees will benefit citizens when sending money abroad or receiving remittances from relatives in the diaspora. It will also reduce costs for businesses engaging with international partners, customers, and suppliers.
Petrović concluded by sharing that, according to World Bank analysis, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Serbia pay nearly six times higher transaction fees than their EU counterparts. If remittance fees were reduced by 3%, the potential savings for the region could amount to nearly half a billion euros.
