The Zaev Government ordered the Macedonian Post Office to begin working with the Halk Bank and conduct payments through its branches. The Post Office stopped conducted basic payments of bills and of retirement incomes after its exclusive partner – the Eurostandard Bank – collapsed several months ago.

As many small towns don’t have a commercial bank branch, and rely on the local post office, this was a huge problem for large parts of the country, not to mention leading to a major drop in Post Office revenue. Prime Minister Zoran Zaev was quick to announce the sale of the Post Office, along with otherr strategic publicly owned companies, but also solicited offers from commercial banks to take over Eurostandard’s role. Turkish owned Halk Bank offered to begin conducting payments in two months, and to split the revenue 71:29 in favor of the Post Office.