Moldova is one step ahead of a number of EU countries in the field of instant payments - Anca Dragu
Governor of the National Bank of Moldova (NBM) stated this while speaking within the first edition of the new season of the “Give Sense to Money” podcast, which is held at the initiative of the NBM with the support of the USAID program “Moldova Institutional and Structural Reforms Activity” to provide citizens with more detailed information on financial and economic topics. The topic of the podcast was “Digitalization of non-cash settlements”. The head of the National Bank said that during her participation in various international forums in recent months, in many debates, discussions, conferences, seminars on the topic of payments, where the digitization of payments was discussed, she proudly mentioned that instant payments work in Moldova, while they do not work in all EU countries. “We have to say that we already have a European directive and they will be mandatory,” Anca Dragu said. According to her, Moldova is one step ahead in the field of instant payments. “What are instant payments? We have the MIA system. It is a platform. It means that payments are fast, secure with very low cost. If in the old days to make some payments you went to the bank with a receipt in 3 copies, handwritten, now we have instant payments through secure digital platforms: you press a button and you can make a payment, and, very importantly, safely and at a low cost,” emphasized Governor of the National Bank. She said that the second element she is proud to mention is Moldova's decision to join the Single Euro Payments System (SEPA). “We submitted this request on January 30, 2024. Thus, we can ensure that euro payments in this European system will also be available in Moldova. This will mean security and speed of payments and, what is very important, reducing the costs from 50, 70 euros that we pay today to 1, 2, 3 euros,” Anca Dragu emphasized. For his part, the Head of the Moldovan Banks Association, Dorel Noroc, said during the program that in Moldova, the banking sector has managed to make significant progress and offer very fast digital solutions, compared to the countries from the region. He recalled that we started with the traditional cashless payment method, with the card, when it was necessary to insert it into the payment terminal, then to enter the card PIN code, and then the payment took place, which required more efforts and quite a lot of time. Later, banks introduced contactless technology. “That is, you pay just by touching the card. The speed has increased, but again there is still the disadvantage that you own this plastic and not as much as you own the card, but you can own a lot of cards, there is a question of knowing the PIN code of the card and so on. Recently, and we see it with our own eyes, it has been actively used when citizens integrate these cards into different applications and payments are made via cell phone. Banks, of course, went further and gave other solutions, such as, for example, the same rings, on the basis of which you can make a payment, but we must admit that the cell phone is the most convenient tool used by the citizen”, - emphasized Dorel Noroc. // 11.11.2024 - InfoMarket.
