THE IMPACT OF COVID 19 ON THE APPLICATION OF E-BANKING: THE CASE OF MACEDONIAN COMMERCIAL BANKS

The crisis, (political, economic, military, health), but also every positive change or novelty in the society, such as the Industrial Revolution, the Information Revolution transform the national economies. These transformations cause a new way of functioning of institutions, including banks, but also affect the life and functioning of people as consumers. The global health crisis caused by Covid-19 in 2020 shook the whole world. The information technology (IT), but even more the Covid-19, have imposed the need for banks to conduct their activities almost completely online. Historically, retail banks have relied on their branches to provide customer service. Consumers realized all necessary banking transactions with a physical presence in the bank branches. The Internet, and especially Covid-19, has altered the way banks operate, but also the consumer behavior. With the migration to online banking, banks must invest in their IT departments, provide secure online platforms, initiate and follow the changes in legislation, to provide reliable and quality services to consumers. Hence, this paper aims to answer the following research questions: What was the situation with the electronic banking in the Macedonian commercial banks before Covid-19? What is the impact of Covid-19 on the electronic conduct of transactions of banks? What are the opportunities and threats to the banking sector from the digitalization process? How the legislation affects the e- bank’s operations? To answer these questions, a survey with banks will be conducted, using a questionnaire. The extensive questionnaire will be submitted to all commercial banks in Macedonia. It contains open and closed questions (Likert scale, semantic differential, multiplechoice questions). After processing the research data, the results showed that Macedonian banks are following the world trends and that they are trying to fully implement the digitalization of their services.

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