How does an IPS payment work?
IPS is a credit transfer from the shopper’s bank account to the merchant’s, made in seconds. The National Bank of Serbia (NBS) went live with the system on 22 October 2018. Instant payments can be made at any time, every day of the year, including weekends and holidays, and a single payment can be up to RSD 300,000.
At an online store, the method is called IPS Skeniraj, or IPS Scan. The shopper chooses it at checkout and the site shows an IPS QR code. The shopper scans the code with their m-banking app, which shows the amount, and confirms with a PIN, fingerprint or another approval method. On a phone, the shopper can instead pick their bank from a list and tap PAY, which opens the banking app on the same device for the same confirmation step. The merchant’s bank then confirms the payment to the store.
The shopper does not type card details or an account number at the store.
Why does IPS matter for merchants?
It costs less than cards. The NBS says banks charge merchants significantly lower fees for IPS payments than for card payments. For payments at the point of sale, the multilateral interchange fee is 0.2% of the payment, paid by the acquirer to the issuer, and the NBS says the payer pays no fee.
It is used at scale. In the second quarter of 2026, IPS NBS processed 34.46 million transactions worth RSD 442 billion, up 30.7% on the same quarter of 2025. On 15 October 2026 it set a record of 611,415 payments in a single day.
It fits a growing online market. NBS data show 78.57 million online purchases paid in dinars in 2025, worth RSD 237.4 billion, up from 56.47 million worth RSD 162.3 billion in 2024. IPS gives shoppers who prefer not to use a card a way to pay from their bank account, in dinars, with the money arriving in seconds.
What can go wrong?
The shopper may not finish in the app. A shopper who scans the code or opens the banking app but does not confirm leaves the order unpaid, so the checkout needs a pending state and a clear way to try again.
Large orders can hit limits. Each IPS payment is capped at RSD 300,000, and the shopper’s bank may apply its own limits.
Refunds need confirming with the bank. IPS is a credit transfer with no card-scheme chargeback, and the NBS pages on online payments do not describe a refund process. A merchant should agree with its bank how refunds are sent back to the shopper and matched to the original payment.
It is domestic. IPS works in dinars between accounts at Serbian banks, so a foreign merchant reaches it through a Serbian bank or payment provider that offers IPS Skeniraj.
How would Omno handle IPS?
A merchant would offer IPS Skeniraj in the hosted checkout or through Direct Links on its own checkout, showing the QR code on a computer and the PAY button on a phone. The merchant’s routing rules would send the payment to a connected Serbian bank or provider that supports IPS. In the hosted checkout, if that provider were unavailable or rejected the request before the shopper confirms, the payment would move to the next provider in the rule until one accepts. The order would stay pending until the provider reports a final status, and the result would reach the merchant by webhook, which is the source of truth for confirming an order. The routing-decision log would record which provider handled each step.