The Council of the National Bank adopted a set of by-laws that operationalize the new legal framework in the payment sphere established by the Law on Payment Services and Payment Systems, the application of which will begin on January 1, 2023.

- The application of the new legal framework is expected to strengthen the competition in the market of payment services by enabling the entry of new providers of payment services who will have to obtain the appropriate permission from the National Bank. Thus, from the beginning of next year, in addition to banks, payment institutions, savings banks, and electronic money institutions will be able to provide payment services. The new competitive environment is expected to motivate existing and new payment service providers and payment system operators to offer customers innovative solutions for faster, more convenient and cheaper payments, informs the National Bank.

From there, they point out that for the execution of payment transactions, citizens and businesses, that is, legal and natural persons, will be able to open accounts with payment institutions and institutions for electronic money. The funds of legal entities and individuals on these accounts will not represent deposits and no interest will be calculated and paid on them. Also, the funds at payment institutions and electronic money institutions will be protected, by being kept in separate accounts in the National Bank, in commercial banks or savings banks, and will not enter the bankruptcy or liquidation table in case of termination. with the work of the institution or the bank and savings bank where they are kept.

The new regulation, as stated in the announcement from the National Bank, will enable greater protection of the rights of users of payment services, and especially of natural persons who are consumers, by standardizing the content of the framework agreements they conclude with payment service providers. and obliging payment service providers to provide complete, clear and timely information about the payment services they offer and the conditions for their performance.

A particularly significant innovation for consumers will be the easier comparison of fees for services related to the payment account. For this purpose, the National Bank will publish a list of the 11 most representative payment account-related services that consumers use most often. In order to provide a clearer presentation of the services offered to consumers and their comparability, payment service providers will be obliged, before concluding a framework agreement for the use of payment services, to provide the consumer with an information document on the fees for the services, according to the standardized terms and definitions of the list of the most representative services.

At the same time, they will be obliged to submit to the National Bank the data on the fees for the most representative services that they will offer to consumers. That data will be published on the website of the National Bank, which will help consumers to easily compare the fees offered by different providers of such services. In this way, it is expected to increase the awareness of consumers and facilitate their decision-making on the use of payment services from a specific payment service provider. The comparison of fees on the website of the National Bank is expected to be enabled by September 30, 2023 at the latest.

At this session, the Council of the National Bank, as stated in the announcement, also adopted other by-laws that regulate in more detail the issues related to capital requirements for new payment service providers, standards for the operation of payment systems, reporting to the National Bank and supervision which will be implemented by the Bank over their operations.