Albania will be able to submit its application to join the Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) by June, the country's central bank deputy governor Luljeta Minxhozi said.

The integration of payment service providers (PSPs) into SEPA schemes to reduce transaction costs is expected to take 18 months from the moment Albania joins the area, Minxhozi told a fintech conference in Tirana.

The central bank has been working closely with PSPs to accelerate this process, Minxhozi added. Central bank governor Gent Sejko said earlier in March that SEPA regulatory transposition into the Albanian regulatory frame is at an advanced stage and the country is "almost ready" to join the area.

Last week, the governor of North Macedonia's central bank, Anita Angelovska Bezhoska, told SeeNews in an interview that the country too plans to apply for SEPA membership by June.

Western Balkan countries - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia - agreed to cut financial transaction fees across the region by aligning their regulations with those of countries in the single payment area this year, EU commissioner for neighborhood and enlargement, Oliver Varhelyi, said earlier this month.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has said transaction fees in the Western Balkans are currently six times higher in the region compared with EU countries.

Earlier this month, the Bank of Albania said it had prepared the draft regulation "On determining the requirements for credit transfers and direct debits in euros".

The draft regulation in question is an adaptation of the European Parliament and Council regulation of 2012 "On establishing technical and business requirements for credit transfers and direct debits in Euros."

It has as its main object the determination of the technical requirements for credit transfer and direct debit transactions carried out in the Euro currency within Albania and between Albania and the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), where both the Payment Service Operator (PSO) of the payer and the beneficiaries are in Albania or one of the PSOs is in Albania and the other is within the SEPA area, or the only PSO involved in the payment transaction is located in Albania.