International payments cards provider Visa has experienced an impressive 63% increase in card transaction values in the eastern European country of Romania, Cardline has reported.
The annual increase, which amounted to over E6.15 billion, represented a close to two-thirds increase on the previous recorded year ending in June 2005.
The value of point-of-sale purchases with Visa cards more than doubled to E543 million during the period, indicating that Romanians are using their cards much more frequently on direct purchases.
Meanwhile, the number of Visa-branded cards in Romania grew by 36% in the year to 4.22 million, Cardline reports Visa saying. 78.1% of all Visa cards in Romania are Visa Electron-branded debit cards, while Visa Classic cards account for 19.3% of the total and Visa Business cards 2.3%.
Figures show that the number of transactions at merchant outlets have doubled for the fifth year in a row, which means that Romanians are increasingly using their cards to make daily purchases, Catalin Cretu, Visa International’s vice president for the Central Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, commented.