For many years, a more digital Croatia was the stuff of fantasies. How could this little country which loves the idea of making people take time off work to masochistically wait in lines to be told false information by poorly trained member of staff ever give up on that and opt for the ''do it yourself from home'' approach of more advanced countries? 

Amazingly enough, it seems Croatia is slowly but surely entering the 21st century, the idea of taking numbers and waiting in lines for hours on end are coming to an end, and a digital Croatia is now closer than ever.

As Marija Crnjak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 10th of February, 2020, the Institute has received 141.5 million kuna grants from the European Social Fund for the project of the digitisation of the pension insurance services, which should last for 46 months - meet eHZMO.

A co-financing contract for a project worth a total of 166.6 million kuna was signed on Friday at the Ministry of Labour. During the aforementioned 46 months, which is the project foreseen duration, the modernisation of the HZMO information and communication system and business processes will be carried out to increase internal efficiency and effectiveness for staff and individuals alike.

The new IT solutions, based in part on the use of artificial intelligence, will enable users to e-communicate with HZMO for most services without the need to take time out of their day to physically come to counters to speak to staff, and the consolidation of business after the completion of the project will provide a more proactive approach to users and have certain services made available regardless of opening hours.

"Considering the number of users that HZMO deals with on a daily basis and with today's digital environment, the quality of service depends largely on adequate IT support. An increasing number of citizens want to solve their problem with the service they need with a single click from their own home," said Ivan Serdar, HZMO's director.

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