National Bank of Serbia Announced Moratorium

As one of the measures introduced by Serbian authorities to fight negative impacts of the outbreak of coronavirus, the National Bank of Serbia (“NBS”), the Serbian central banking authority, announced moratorium on debts towards banks and finance lease providers. The NBS adopted two decisions:

1. Decision on temporary measures to preserve stability of the financial system, and
2. Decision on temporary measures for finance lease providers to preserve stability of the financial system.

As stated by the NBS, the moratorium is applicable to all debtors, who wish to benefit from the moratorium (natural persons, farmers, entrepreneurs and companies). The moratorium would last at least 90 days, or during the declared state of emergency. During the term of the state of emergency, a bank and a finance lease provider would not accrue default interest on outstanding payables, initiate enforced collection, or undertake any action aimed at collection of receivables from clients. Additionally, as a precaution measure, the NBS instructed that a bank and a finance lease provider would not be entitled to claim any costs reimbursement related to the adopted regulations.

Banks and finance lease providers are obliged to publish the moratorium on their websites. Publishing the notice on moratorium it shall be deemed that the notice is delivered to all clients of respective banks and finance lease providers. If clients do not respond to the published notice within 10 days, the moratorium shall be effective without any action of clients. However, clients may at their discretion reject moratorium in which case they must expressly communicate such rejection to bank/finance lease provider.

Still, clients shall retain right to repay debts at their discretion during moratorium.

By JPM Jankovic Popovic Mitic