Enforced collection

The National Bank of Serbia is obliged and authorized to perform enforced collection of claims by debiting any of the debtor’s accounts (dinar or foreign currency accounts), without the holder’s consent, based on enforceable orders (from tax, customs, court or other authorities), and payment orders (with regard to securities, bills and authorizations), in line with the prescribed order of priorities and the time of receipt within the same priority group. As of 30 September 2005, enforceable orders issued by the relevant authorities will be submitted to the organizational part of the NBS – Division for Receipt, Control and Entry of Execution Titles and Orders, Kragujevac, Branka Radičevića 16a.

Enforced collection of claims is executed pursuant to a number of regulations, the most important being: the Law on Payment Transactions, Law on Execution Proceedings, Law on Bankruptcy, Law on Bills, and by-laws – decisions, guidelines and instructions of the governor of the National Bank of Serbia.

The following debtors may undergo enforced collection:

  • legal entities holding accounts with banks;
  • natural persons holding accounts with banks and engaged in a particular activity;
  • banks holding accounts with the National Bank of Serbia.

Enforced collection is executed in dinars from all debtor’s accounts (dinar deposit and foreign currency accounts). If creditors are foreign natural persons or legal entities, the entire amount specified by the court is credited to the non-resident’s bank account in the dinar equivalent of the foreign currency debt.

Enforced collection is conducted in several phases:

  • receipt and recording of decisions (I and II priority group) and orders (III priority group);
  • inspection of the validity of execution titles – decisions and orders, which entails the return of invalid execution titles to the bearer;
  • entry of decisions into the Program.

Decisions and orders are executed through an exchange of electronic messages between the Enforced Collection Department and banks, by blocking the debtor’s personal identification number, which implies blocking of all bank accounts held by the debtor and banning banks from opening new accounts to such debtors.