On 18 June, Parliament passed in first reading a law that changes the relationship between people and banks on two fronts. First, it requires payment-service providers — banks above all — to display their fees in a standardized, easy-to-compare document. Second, it guarantees every citizen the right to a “payment account with basic features,” which becomes free for the most financially vulnerable — pensioners first of all. The bill, drafted by the National Commission for Financial Markets (NCFM), transposes a European directive and still has to clear a second reading.
For a district like Ungheni, the stake is not technical but social. It is home to 74,507 people, nearly two thirds (63%) in villages, with one in four over 60 and 19,709 pensioners (NBS data, 1 January 2025) — exactly the category the law calls a “financially vulnerable consumer.”
What a “basic-features account” actually means
It is an account that, under the bill, anyone who does not already hold one is entitled to. The bank must decide within no more than ten working days, and a refusal cannot be discriminatory. The account covers the essential operations — deposits, cash withdrawals (in the country and in the European Union), card payments including online, direct debits and transfers — with no cap on the number of operations and at least in lei.
The part that matters most in Ungheni is that it is free. For the “financially vulnerable consumer” — defined as a person who receives pensions, allowances or other social payments and whose monthly income does not exceed the national minimum wage — the account’s basic services come at no charge. For everyone else, the law requires “reasonable fees,” benchmarked against the average wage and the market average of fees.
Fees in plain sight, and a comparison website
The law’s second pillar is transparency. Before you sign an account contract, the bank will be required to hand you a standardized document listing all tariffs and fees, in the same format for everyone, so you can compare offers like with like. Once a year, you will receive free of charge a statement of the fees you paid over the previous twelve months.
In addition, the NCFM is to build a public website where every provider’s fees sit side by side, under common criteria; banks will have to announce any tariff change at least ten days in advance. The law also sets up a service whereby, if you want to move your account to another bank, the new bank does the moving for you.
The figure behind the law
The need is not theoretical. Bank-account ownership in Moldova has fallen in recent years: while in 2021 some 64.2% of adults had an account, by 2024 the share had dropped to 55.5% — 22.3 points below the average for the Europe and Central Asia region, according to the World Bank’s Global Findex 2025 data, cited in the bill’s own explanatory note. Four in ten people without an account say they do not trust financial institutions.
On top of this sits Ungheni’s profile: rural, ageing and dependent on money from abroad. Remittances sent by individuals amounted to 10.5% of the country’s GDP in 2024, and most of them enter through money-transfer systems, without a bank account — that is, precisely through the most expensive channel. A free basic account and a public list of fees could matter more in such a district than in the big cities.
The other side: banks say it is premature
The bill did not pass without resistance. In their opinions on the law, the Association of Banks of Moldova called the transposition “premature” while the Republic of Moldova is not yet in the European Union, and asked for the chapter on account switching to be removed, arguing that in the EU the service was rarely used — only 98 cases in Romania over six years, by the figures cited. The American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham), for its part, warned that forcing fees down would hurt banks’ sustainability, since tariffs cover real costs — operations, cybersecurity, compliance with anti-money-laundering rules.
The NCFM rejected most objections, citing the commitment made in the EU accession talks — to transpose the directive by the end of 2026 — but extended the deadline for the account-switching part to 24 months. Supervision will rest with the NCFM, not the National Bank, and for breaches the law sets fines of 5,000 to 25,000 lei.
When it actually takes effect
For now, nothing changes at the counter. The law has cleared only the first reading, with a second still to come, in which the text may yet be altered. Even after adoption and publication, most provisions take effect only a year later, those on account switching after two years, and a few — tied to cross-border operations — only on the day Moldova joins the European Union. Until then, the free account for the district’s 19,709 pensioners remains a promise on paper — but one with a deadline.