Albania, the only one in the region with 3 SEPA schemes - Financial institutions also offer instant transfers or recurring payments
Albania participates in 3 Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) schemes. According to a document from the European Payments Council, 13 financial institutions in the country offer the possibility of making standard payments in euros with SEPA.
Other countries in the region, Montenegro, Serbia and North Macedonia, participate in a maximum of two Single Euro Payments Area schemes, while Albania offers more methods of making cross-border payments through this system.
Thus, a financial institution in the country also offers the possibility of conducting SEPA Instant Credit Transfers, an improved version of standard transfers. This scheme supports money transfers of up to €100,000 between participating banks or other payment service providers. The word “instant” itself implies that the vast majority of transactions are processed within a few seconds and are available 24/7/365.
Also, only one Albanian financial institution participates in the SEPA Direct Debit Core (SDD Core). This scheme enables businesses or service providers to collect payments directly from the bank accounts of debtors - in this case, consumers. Consumers must give their explicit consent by signing a mandate to participate. This scheme is often used to collect recurring payments, such as utility bills, subscriptions or loan repayments.
Neither Albania nor other countries in the region have yet been included in the SEPA scheme designed only for transactions between businesses, which is often used for recurring payments, such as bill payments, subscription fees, membership fees and supplier payments, nor in the new scheme where it results in one party's bank being in SEPA and the other not.
With SEPA, Albanian citizens, businesses and the economy directly benefit from 5-10 times lower costs for cross-border transfers in Euros. For electronic payments up to 20,000 euros, the commission is a maximum of 2 euros. For payments of 20,000 euros to 100,000 euros, the commission ranges from 2–10 euros (up to 0.01% of the value), for payments over 100,000 euros the cost is a maximum of 25 euros and for remittances a maximum of 3 euros.
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