Gent Sejko: New normal - challenges and opportunities Keynote speech by Mr Gent Sejko, Governor of the Bank of Albania, at the Conference on “New normal: Challenges & Opportunities”, European University of Tirana, Tirana, 30 April 2021. * * * Honourable Professor Gjuraj, Honourable Professor Xhepa, Dear students and participants, It is a great pleasure for me to greet the proceedings of this Conference on the “New normal”. This topic is both an emergent and unresolved issue of the current economic debate. We altogether: policy makers; academics; and operators in the private sector, are aware that a new reality lies ahead in the post-pandemic world. “What would be the contours of this new reality?”; “What challenges and opportunities lie ahead of the private sector?” and “Which will be the objectives and instruments of the monetary policy”. These questions still lack a thoroughly answer. For this reason, I would like to thank the European University of Tirana, for selecting this topic of an utmost importance. The European University of Tirana is a hearth of knowledge which has succeeded in positioning at the centre of: education; academic discussion; and innovation enhancement. Today, it manifests a consolidated profile in the academic debate. While trying to summarise the Bank of Albania’s opinion on the selected topic, following, I will address in my speech three specific issues: First, I will show briefly the impact of the pandemic on the Albanian economy and the measures taken by the Bank of Albania to minimise its effects.
In order to achieve a harmonized application of legislation at European level and to support payment initiation and account information service providers, the European Banking Authority (EBA) adopted an opinion on obstacles in early June 2020. within the meaning of Art. 32 (3) of the regulatory technical standards for in-depth identification of the customer and common and secure standards of communication1. The opinion highlights a number of technical or organizational obstacles that payment service providers, which maintain accounts, pose to the new services and which should be removed. Examples of such obstacles include the unavailability of all procedures for performing in-depth identification of the customer when using the new services, requiring manual entry of the IBAN on the payment account from which payment is initiated or requesting account information, repeated in-depth establishing the identity when initiating payment, the need to provide prior consent to the client to use the new services, etc. 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  Improving the security of electronic payments is the second major aspect of PSD2. In September 2019, the requirements for payment service providers to apply a procedure for indepth identification of the customer when the payer accesses his payment account online, initiates an electronic payment transaction or performs another remote action that could occur risk of payment fraud. These requirements have started to apply to credit transfers made through the Internet and mobile banking platforms.