INTERVIEW ALEKSANDAR LJUBIĆ, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE FOREIGN INVESTORS COUNCIL OF SERBIA
WE’VE YET TO SEE THE FULL BENEFIT OF DIGITALISATION
IN THE INSURANCE SECTOR
The Foreign Investors Council of Serbia has a multitude of ideas on how to continue the wave of digitalisation and render numerous financial sector services even more accessible to citizens
D
igitalisation, which the FIC has spent years advocating for, has brought advances in many fields, from e-government to the financial sector. Now, according to FIC Executive Director Aleksandar Ljubić, it is very important for further reforms in this field to continue.
The pandemic brought us hitherto unseen acceleration in all fields, and particularly when it comes to the digitalisation of financial services. How has Serbia’s financial system responded to these challenges? - We’ve seen a sharp increase in electronic transactions since the outbreak of the pandemic, but also
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Financial Sector Serbia 2022
in the wider application of contactless payment options using digital “wallets”, which have been made available to a large number of financial institutions. In addition to this, significant progress in the area of the legal framework that enables the further digitalisation of financial services in Serbia has also led to the acceleration of digitalisation. The exceptional advances that Serbia has made during the time of the pandemic, and which will have a lasting positive impact on the competitiveness of the Serbian economy, are represented by the introducing of the service of issuing qualified funds for the creation of a remote electronic signature, a so-called cloud qualified signature, then the
real-time electronic recording of transactions via the internet, or online fiscalization and electronic invoicing, and the introduction of the first registered electronic identification scheme, as well as the enabling of payments of monthly bills, shopping at retail outlets and online in an exceptionally simple way, via the national IPS (Instant Payment System) using QR codes. Simultaneously, Serbia’s e-government system has reached a critical juncture at which there is sufficient infrastructure and the technical and personnel capacity required to quickly develop new services (such as the “My Data for Bank” service) and place them in the function of resolving urgent social issues. The
