A man from Prilep who works for an American company, receives his salary by check. He says that many American companies have that system in place, to pay the money by check and then the customer to turn it into money in his bank.

Our interlocutor explains that he got a job in the American company in Slovakia where he lived for many years, but returned to Macedonia with the crown and continued to work for the same company online. While he was in Slovakia, he realized his checks normally, and now he does not know what to do because the bank in which he has an account and which he listed as a new account with his employer, informed him that he could not pay him a check.

- These days after DHL I received the check for what I did. That's my only income, I'm living on it. I went to the branch of NLB Bank and asked them to realize my check. I did not even think there would be a problem. I have done this many times before in Slovakia. But there they looked at me in astonishment and told me that they were not doing such a thing. I insisted on the answer why this is so, I asked if I should go to the headquarters, but the answer was the same - we do not do that - says Blagoja.

We also asked for an answer regarding the realization of checks from abroad. NLB Bank told us that their assessment is that the checks are risky and that is why they do not do that.

- Due to the fact that the checks proved to be high risk and with possibilities for potential misuse, with a decision of the NLB Group, the service of transferring funds through a bank check is no longer available through NLB Bank Skopje. Through NLB Bank Skopje, international transfer of funds can be done through a standard SWIFT message / transfer, if the conditions meet the foreign exchange regime dictated by the National Bank - said NLB Bank.

Our interlocutor says that he asked in several other banks, but that they answered that they do not do that service.

- Certainly I am not the only one who has this trouble. I went from bank to bank to ask if any bank in Macedonia does that, but I did not get an affirmative answer anywhere. I wanted to change the bank, open a new transaction in another bank, return the check by DHL and request a new one, on the new account. But none of that. So far I have not found a bank that will realize my check and I really do not know what to do - says our interlocutor.

We also asked the largest Macedonian bank - Komercijalna Banka whether they work with checks. But they told us that they have not been doing that for a long time.

- Komercijalna Banka AD Skopje has not accepted checks for collection in US dollar currency for 7 years due to the impossibility to collect them through a foreign bank. Namely, the American banks with which our bank had cooperation in the past, stopped accepting such checks. The reasons for their decision are the high processing costs and the increasing number of counterfeits, as well as the existence of more modern and safer ways of international money transfer. At this moment, the best solution for transferring funds on the basis of salary is to use the so-called bank transfer through the SWIFT system, which in the United States is called "wire transfer" - say from Komercijalna Banka.

Our interlocutor, on the other hand, says that he is worried about the payment of his salaries, because the American company he works for practices the payment by checks and that he has already paid the commission for such a payment method in the banks in Slovakia.