Prishtina, 5 February 2024
At his invitation, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, today welcomed the ambassadors, chargé d’affaires, heads of diplomatic missions and deputy ambassadors accredited to Kosovo to a meeting to discuss current issues, with an emphasis on the Central Bank’s Regulations for Operations with Cash.
Prime Minister Kurti, together with Deputy Prime Minister Besnik Bislimi and the Minister of Finance, Labor and Transfers, Hekuran Murat, shared with the present ambassadors the positions of the Government of the Republic of Kosovo and the arguments on the importance and details of the regulation in question.
They clarified that the regulation does not aim at banning the dinar or any other currency, but aims at banking and financial regulation in Kosovo. Consequently, increasing the financial integrity of the country and limiting the financing of illegal activities, money laundering, the circulation of counterfeit money and the formalization of the economy.
On the part of the Government, it was emphasized that no local business owned by Serbian citizens in Kosovo or in municipalities with a Serbian majority has been punished or fined since the entry into force of the regulation and that this is not the intention of the institutions.
The Prime Minister said that neither the situation on the ground nor the content of the regulation is as portrayed by Serbia. About 40 thousand Serbian citizens in Kosovo have bank accounts in one of the licensed banks in Kosovo. Through them, they receive pensions, social support, monthly salaries, allowances for children and maternity, and other one-time allowances from the treasury of the state of Kosovo.
The regulation enables the acceptance of funds, salaries and pensions from abroad as a form of transfers to these bank accounts, and according to it, the dinar can serve as a means of physical savings, in a bank savings account and can be exchanged in licensed exchanges. So it does not hinder access to finance, at the same time that physical access is offered through banks and non-banking financial institutions throughout the country – only in the four municipalities in the north of the country there are a total of 15 non-banking financial institutions and four branches of commercial banks.
However, Prime Minister Kurti expressed the readiness of the Government of Kosovo and subordinate institutions to quickly address any concerns, as he emphasized that during this period of transition, the focus will be on informing businesses that operate in dinars and in an informal manner.
He also informed them that he has received confirmation from the Central Bank of Kosovo that it is ready to engage in professional and operational discussions with the People’s Bank of Serbia to assist in the identification of legal, safe and transparent mechanisms for the transfer of any form of support from Serbia.
Last modified: February 6, 2024