During the three-day conference in Ohrid, representatives of21 central banks from the region of Western, Central and Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Middle East and North Africa, as well as representatives of the financial sector, discussed, debated and exchanged experiences on the challenges of payments digitalization. High officials from the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the central banks belonging to the European System of Central Banks, the Bank for International Settlements and the World Bank made a special contribution to these discussions.

CEF’s attendance of this conference lead to further strengthening of the successful cooperation between the three institutions: the CEF, De Nederlandsche Bank and the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia. The President of the Conference, Michiel Van Doeveren from the Dutch Central Bank, and Igor Velickovski, Head of Payment Systems Department at the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia, were the experts lecturing on the webinar on Financial Inclusion and the Role of Payment Systems. Thus, the Conference served as an opportunity to promote the CEF program and, more specifically, the aforementioned webinar among central bankers and wider audiences interested in topics such as: payment systems, financial education, and financial and digital inclusion.