Why did the Bank of Albania revoke the licenses of 80 foreign exchange offices?

The number of foreign exchange offices declined in 2025, for the first time in eight years.

According to information from the Bank of Albania, at the end of last year the number of entities licensed for this activity decreased to 592 foreign exchange offices, from 642 such as was the official figure reported at the end of 2024. Over the course of a year, the market has shrunk by 50 entities or approximately 8%. During 2025, 33 new foreign exchange office licenses were granted, and 83 licenses were revoked.

The Bank of Albania announces that it has significantly increased supervisory attention to foreign exchange offices, as a sector with high exposure to physical money and direct contact with the public.

According to the annual supervision report, the focus of the controls has been not only on the existence of internal procedures, but especially on their implementation in practice, including customer identification, transaction monitoring, documentation storage and reporting of suspicious cases.

In 2025, 27 on-site inspections were carried out, mainly in the context of fulfilling supervisory duties and, where appropriate, in cooperation with the Financial Intelligence Agency. The main findings relate to shortcomings in the implementation of appropriate and enhanced vigilance, lack of centralized systems for data collection and analysis, weaknesses in documenting verifications with sanctions lists, lack of training and irregular reporting of foreign exchange transactions to the Bank of Albania.

Due to the problems identified, the licenses of 80 foreign exchange offices were revoked, attention-drawing measures were taken for one of them, and other administrative measures were taken in 201 other cases.

These data show that the decrease in the number of foreign exchange offices has mainly resulted from measures taken by the Bank of Albania.

Between 2017 and 2024, the number of bureaux increased by 50%. The growth of tourism, especially in the post-pandemic period, has increased the volume of foreign exchange transactions and consequently seems to have driven the demand for the opening of more bureaux de change.

The new regulation strengthened requirements and limited cash exchanges.

In addition to strengthening control and inspections, last year the Bank of Albania also approved several amendments to the regulation "On the licensing, organization, operation and supervision of foreign exchange offices".

The main changes relate to the increase in initial capital, documentation of the source of capital and requirements for the exercise of activity, with the aim of strengthening regulatory requirements, which, among other things, address the entry and operation in the market of entities that meet the necessary conditions of financial stability, adequacy and integrity of capital holding structures, responsible management, as well as the implementation of the regulatory framework.

The new regulation provides that the minimum capital required for licensing these offices will be doubled, from 2.5 million lek to 5 million lek. Any payment of the minimum initial capital, any subsequent addition to it, as well as any change in the capital structure must be accompanied by the submission to the Bank of Albania of information regarding the source of creation of this capital.

The regulation also sets limits for the first time on physical cash transactions carried out by exchange offices. The licensed entity, while carrying out foreign exchange activities, will not be allowed to keep in cash on a daily basis monetary values ​​(cash) higher than the minimum initial capital. Exchange offices will also not be allowed to carry out physical cash transactions exceeding an amount of 2.5 million lek or its equivalent in other foreign currencies, carried out in a single transaction or in several transactions connected to each other. Transactions exceeding this amount must be carried out through bank accounts or payment accounts.

In addition to the requirements of the previous regulation, the new regulation provides that when reviewing the application for licensing a foreign exchange office, the Bank of Albania will assess the suitability, good reputation and integrity of the shareholder/partner, beneficial owner and administrator of the entity at the time of licensing, as well as whenever there are changes in the composition of the ownership structure and management bodies during the exercise of the activity.

A shareholder, beneficial owner or administrator will be considered to have good reputation if it complies with the applicable legal and regulatory framework, including those related to the prevention of money laundering and the financing of terrorism; has no criminal record related to financial crimes, illegal activities or serious legal violations; has financial stability and is not involved in significant financial or legal matters that may damage reputation or credibility and is not subject to investigations or sanctions for non-compliance with the applicable legal and regulatory framework./Monitor