Businesses in Albania are required by law to offer customers the option of paying by card or online. However, the requirement is rarely enforced, while businesses say bank fees are several times higher than the European average.
Foreign tourists are among those queuing outside an ice cream shop in the 9-katëshet area of central Tirana. A scoop costs 100 lekë, but for visitors who mainly carry cards rather than cash, buying one is not always straightforward.
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Customer demand has prompted small merchants, including this shop, to use POS terminals for card payments. But an ice cream paid for this way automatically costs 25% more than one bought with cash.
The saleswoman says the surcharge is not profit for the shop: according to her, the bank charges it 25 lekë for every card sale. She adds that she does not know exactly whether the bank also takes 2% or 3% of turnover.
Digital technology has fundamentally changed payments around the world, but in Albania its use continues to carry costs for businesses and consumers. To reduce the circulation of cash, the government amended the law “On Tax Procedures in the Republic of Albania,” requiring businesses to obtain POS/POI terminals for card or online payments.
Tourist accommodation providers were required to obtain these terminals by May 30, 2026; for other businesses, the deadline falls at the end of the year. Many say bank fees, so far several times higher than the average in European countries, make it difficult to meet the requirement.
Public transport is one sector where demand for card payments is high, but introducing them has encountered obstacles. The head of the Public Transport Association, Kostandin Foni, told BIRN that operators sought offers from commercial banks and calculated an average cost. The question of who would pay it remained unresolved: the operators or passengers, through a ticket price that would need approval from the Municipal Council.
According to Foni, operators cannot afford the fee: a ticket costs 40 lekë, while the fixed amount alone that banks sought for a transaction was 30 lekë. On top of that came a percentage of turnover and the cost of installing and maintaining the terminal. He claims that, under these conditions, the intermediary banks would earn far more than the transport providers.
Following pressure to raise the urban bus fare, the Ministry of Finance suspended the law’s application to public transport, arguing that the sector is not among businesses that issue fiscalized invoices. Foni says the suspension does not solve the problem.
He says operators have sought electronic ticketing for years, which would allow payment by card, online or in cash. In his view, the path toward the European Union cannot be followed with a ticket inherited from the communist era that can be produced anywhere and contains no security features, vehicle registration number, company name or route.
POS system fees
Although branches of some of Europe’s largest banks operate in Albania, payment technology developed slowly, at least until 2020, when parliament passed the “Law on Payment Services.” Previously, many businesses seeking online or card payments needed annual turnover of more than 200,000 euros. Obtaining and maintaining a terminal, along with bank fees, cost two to three times as much as in neighboring countries.
The law enabled the licensing of financial intermediaries for online payments and increased banks’ interest in these services. Nevertheless, cash use in the economy continued to grow, while POS installation and commissions remained costly.
Of the 12 commercial banks currently operating in Albania, three do not offer online or card payments. For the other nine, data analyzed by BIRN show an average POS commission of 3% per transaction; the lowest fee is 1.9% and the highest is 4%.
Depending on the bank, installing a device costs between zero and 5,000 lekë, while maintenance runs to 1,000 lekë a month. The chairman of the Hotel and Tourism Association, Zak Topuzi, says commissions ranging from 1.9% for hotels with high turnover to 3.5% for small service establishments encourage businesses to avoid POS terminals.
Topuzi calculates that when a small business’s profit does not exceed 10%, the bank takes 30% to 35% of that profit. He says the average European POS fee is 0.3%.
The Association of Banks offers a different explanation: it says the fees reflect the high cost of investing in terminals for online or card payments. The association’s secretary-general, Spiro Brumbulli, says banks with a larger market can cover POS costs more easily, while those that need to invest more also seek higher revenue.
Brumbulli maintains that banks do not make a profit from this service. According to BIRN’s analysis, however, the data show otherwise.
Last year, payments at POS terminals reached 248 billion lekë, or 2.73 billion euros at today’s exchange rate. Applying the market’s lowest fee, 1.9%, to that amount and deducting the 0.14% share due to infrastructure providers VISA and Mastercard, BIRN calculates that the nine banks earned 47.7 million euros in POS revenue in 2025.
The financial statements of the nine banks analyzed show that net commission income rose from 129 million euros in 2024 to 134 million euros at the end of 2025. The banks with the largest market shares have the highest service income: Raiffeisen, BKT, Credins and Intesa San Paolo, in that order.
These commissions do not come solely from POS terminals. They also include deposits, withdrawals and other customer transactions at branches or ATMs. Profit from service commissions accounted for a third of banks’ profits last year, although lending is their main profit-making activity.
Business representatives told BIRN that they have long asked the Investment Council to bring POS fees down to the European level. Topuzi says a 0.3% fee would make card use easier: on a payment of 100 euros, the bank would receive 30 cents. He says this would particularly benefit foreign customers, who do not use cash.
Following these requests, the Bank of Albania approved the regulation “On Interchange Fees for Card-Based Payment Transactions” on November 3. It caps fees at 0.2% of the transaction value for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards, for online or POS payments.
Brumbulli describes the regulation as an alignment with the European Union standard. He acknowledges that the cap hurts banks, but says they must make a sacrifice to develop the market and can offset the loss with other products.
Card payments for public services
Public service providers must also enable card or online payments, but not all have done so. It also remains unclear whether bank fees are paid by public companies or by citizens.
Albanian Post told BIRN that, in its view, the deadline for meeting the requirement is December of this year and that it is working through the process of making POS terminals operational, both technically and in practice. The Law on Tax Procedures, meanwhile, required public companies to offer this option from June 1 of this year.
The postal service did not say whether it had held a tender to choose an intermediary bank. It said only that the costs of the terminals and payments made through them are expected to be covered by the merchant and the service provider.
OSHEE, the electricity distribution company, has begun accepting card payments. In its response to BIRN, it said the intermediary bank was chosen through an expression-of-interest process and that the contract went to the best offer. OSHEE disclosed neither the bank’s name nor the percentage it pays, but said it covers all commissions on POS payments.
Ujësjellës Kanalizime Tiranë also offers electronic payments through Raiffesisen Bank’s systems. The company pays the bank 1% of the transaction value and does not pass this cost on to consumers. POS terminals, however, have not been introduced by all water utilities owned by other municipalities.
Cash continues to grow
Legislative efforts to restrict cash and opportunities for money laundering have been frequent. Businesses may conduct cash transactions with one another up to 100,000 lekë; payments above that amount must go through a bank. A year ago, parliament also decided that payments of more than 500,000 lekë between individuals and businesses must be made through a bank.
Over the years, the threshold at which the source of cash deposited in a bank must be declared has changed, falling as low as 1 million lekë or 10,000 euros. For citizens, the rules have meant sharing spending data with banks and public authorities, as well as forms, procedures, queues and costs for transactions and transfers.
Despite the restrictions, the amount of cash in the economy has increased. According to the Bank of Albania, 5.88 billion euros was circulating outside banking channels in September of this year, up from 5.08 billion euros in September of last year. Over a decade, that amount has risen by 226% and is estimated to account for 72% of the monetary base.
Brumbulli says the Albanian economy still relies heavily on cash. According to him, a complete shift to digital banking services is difficult while some generations remain uncomfortable with online services; until they become familiar with them, payments will remain a mix of methods.
Informality is also a problem in the accommodation sector: hotels provide only 22% of Albania’s accommodation capacity, while the rest comes from apartments and villas. Topuzi says the sector has pushed for card payments as a way to formalize the market, but it remains to be seen how the measure will be implemented and what results it will bring.
