Serbia is now part of the SEPA payment schemes’ geographical scope

As of May 22, Serbia is officially part of the geographical scope of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) payment schemes. The National Bank of Serbia (NBS) has taken steps to align its payment systems and regulations with European Union (EU) standards. Serbia now becomes the 41st country to join SEPA, marking an important step on its path towards EU integration.

As a result, all existing European Payments Council (EPC) payment scheme participants should be able to send or to receive SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT), SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) and SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) transactions to and from SCT, SCT Inst and SDD scheme participants from Serbia as and when their financial institutions will adhere to these schemes.

The adherence of Serbian financial institutions to the SEPA payment schemes, according to the EPC calendar, will be enabled starting from November 2025. The earliest Operational Readiness Date (ORD) for payment service providers (PSPs) from Serbia is May 2026. The exact ORD will be communicated at a later stage.