Use of VISA Cards Up In Romania

Romanians use more often the bank cards at retailers, mostly the debit cards, which were previously perceived as just a way to receive one's salary.

Romanians use more often the bank cards at retailers, mostly the debit cards, which were previously perceived as just a way to receive one's salary.

For instance, the aggregate value of VISA-card payments issued in Romania reached 10.3 billion Euro in 2007, as compared to 8.2 billion Euro in 2006. The payments were made in Romania, abroad or on-line.
This also meant a 67% increase in the number of VISA-card payments ordered to retailers in 2007, as compared to 2006; this translated into a 73.5% increase in the value of the payments.
“We are on a crusade against the use of cash, even in small transactions,” said Catalin Cretu, general manager with VISA Europe Romania, who pointed out there are 46,000 retailers in Romania who accept VISA for their business transactions.
He added that the average size of single payments made by VISA-card went down 0.7%.
In Europe, one in nine Euro is spent via a card transaction at the retailers, while in Romania – one in one hundred Euro is spent in the same way.
“Our target is that by 2015 one in every five Euro to be spend via using a bank card,” said Cretu.
As for the recent spat of card frauds surfacing in Romania, Cretu said the card holders should be more prudent.
“As one never gives the cash away to a stranger, when making a payment, so one should not give away information that leads unauthorized people to access our funds on the bank card,” said Cretu.
Still, the fraudulent versus legitimate operations conducted via bank cards favors Romania, as compared to the European average. The Romanian figure is 0.0034% , while the European average is 0.0531%.
The use of business cards is also on the rise in Romania, which has a direct impact on the gray economy, Cretu said.
The number of issued business cards went up 47.8% last year, from a year before, while the aggregate value of the transactions conducted on them went above one billion Euro, as the number of transactions on VISA business cards went up 16.8%.