The Bank of Albania published Governor Gent Sejko’s address to a business forum on how innovation is reshaping Albanian financial services, focusing on the rapid growth of digital payments and two priority initiatives: Albania’s entry into the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) payment schemes and the rollout of open banking under the PSD2-aligned framework. The speech reported that digital payments per capita reached 23 in 2024, up from 2 in 2015, while financial inclusion rose to 78% from around 40% over the same period. It highlighted earlier regulatory and infrastructure steps, including the AIPS Euro system, with estimated savings of around EUR 100 million, and the removal in 2020 of fees for payments up to ALL 20,000, with reported savings of around ALL 700 million. On SEPA, it referenced the European Payments Council decision of 21 November 2024 to include Albania in the geographical scope of SEPA schemes and estimated that lower euro cross-border fees could save economic agents around EUR 20 million in the first year, with benefits dependent on individual financial institutions being accepted into SEPA schemes. The Bank of Albania is coordinating and monitoring institutions’ readiness, with applications expected to start in April 2025 and SEPA transactions expected to become available to citizens and businesses starting in October 2025. On open banking, it described the operationalisation of payment initiation and account information services under the 2020 Payment Services Law and related implementing acts adopted in 2021–2024, noting that two electronic money institutions have been authorised and four applications remain under review, with initial successful transactions already recorded between a bank and an electronic money institution.

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