For Alketa Noni, cross-border payments are the lifeblood of her business. As manager of Mini Invest Albania, a food products distribution company, she regularly sends money across borders to pay suppliers and partners. Until recently, each transfer came with a steep price tag — and a wait.
"Before SEPA, we were paying high fees every single day just to move money across borders," she says. "Now, the same payments cost us less than 10 euros per day. The entire process is faster and completely online."
That change — deceptively simple on the surface — is the result of a landmark shift in how the Western Balkans connects to European financial infrastructure.
A New Era for Cross-Border Payments
In October 2025, Albania, Montenegro, and North Macedonia were admitted to the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), joining a network of over 40 countries that share a common framework for fast, low-cost euro transfers. For businesses and citizens in these countries, it marked a turning point. Domestic banks gained the ability to integrate with European payment schemes, making cross-border euro transactions as straightforward as domestic bank transfer.
The impact on costs has been dramatic. New World Bank data shows that average business-to-business payment transfer costs fell tenfold in the months following each country's SEPA launch. In Montenegro, for example, the average cost of a SEPA transaction between October 2025 and January 2026 was 6.15 euros — compared to an average of 73.4 euros per transaction in 2024, based on the prior correspondent banking model. That is nearly 12 times cheaper.
Savings That Translate Into Jobs
For Alketa, the numbers are not abstract. "In total, our daily transfers cost around 2,500 euros less per month," she explains. "We've been able to bring on two new field sales agents, expanding our activity and strengthening our presence in the key areas where we operate. Their work has already had an impact — we are reaching new clients and increasing our sales."
It is exactly this kind of ripple effect that policymakers across the Western Balkans are hoping to see more of. The region faces a dual challenge: sustaining convergence with the European Union while addressing the pressures of an aging labor force and ongoing outmigration. Creating better, more productive jobs is central to meeting that challenge. Modernizing the payments ecosystem — lowering costs, and broadening access to digital financial services — is one important piece of that puzzle.
Years of Partnership Behind the Scenes
The SEPA launch did not happen overnight, and it did not happen alone. The World Bank has been working with governments and central banks across the Western Balkans, and the European Commission for years to lay the groundwork for this moment. It provided technical assistance to payment system regulators and overseers in the Western Balkan countries, helping them understand the requirements for SEPA accession and build the institutional capacity to meet them.
A core part of the effort involved bringing multiple countries to the table simultaneously — supporting knowledge sharing and a coordinated, regional approach to payment system harmonization rather than fragmented, country-by-country reforms.
In Montenegro, for example, the World Bank has supported a lending operation that directly backed payment system modernization, helping finance the infrastructure and institutional changes required for SEPA integration.
What Comes Next
Efforts are already underway to bring more countries in the region into SEPA. Expanding membership to other Western Balkan economies — and beyond — would deepen integration, sharpen competition, and spread the benefits more widely: not only to businesses and citizens across the region, but to the tourism, trade, and services sectors that connect them to the rest of Europe.
For Alketa, the direction of travel is clear. "Our business is performing very well," she says. "I'm very grateful to SEPA for making sure that our resources stay where they matter most — in growing the business and investing in people."
The October 2025 SEPA launches were a beginning, not an endpoint. Work is already underway to expand the scope of what payment modernization can do for the region. Fast payments — which settle in seconds for end users rather than hours — are expected to become available later this year in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Kosovo. As those capabilities materialize, the benefits for businesses, households, and public services will continue to grow.
In a region where every efficiency gain matters, and where the path to prosperity runs through stronger connections with Europe, that is no small thing.
