The National Bank of Moldova published an account of Governor Anca Dragu's bilateral meeting in Basel with Bank of France Governor Emmanuel Moulin, centered on strengthening institutional cooperation and France's support for Moldova's European integration path. The update frames the Bank of France as a strategic partner in Moldova's alignment with European standards and links the dialogue to ongoing work on financial sector modernization. The release highlights the memorandum of understanding signed on Jan. 17, 2025, as a key step in deepening cooperation, with exchanges focused on monetary policy, financial stability, digitalization, and regulation of banking and nonbanking markets. In discussing financial infrastructure, Dragu pointed to progress in payment system digitalization and said Moldova's integration into the Single Euro Payments Area, or SEPA, showed its capacity to implement complex European standards quickly. In the first 240 days after launch, SEPA payments accounted for 78.13% of the volume and 44.8% of the value of cross-border euro transactions. The meeting also reiterated the National Bank of Moldova's commitment to continue harmonizing financial legislation with the European Union acquis and to advance the process of obtaining recognition by the European Banking Authority of the equivalence of Moldova's prudential framework.