Some banks automatically issue contactless cards when old cards expire, others replace standard cards even before their expiry date, such as ING Bank. ING Bank has the highest number of contactless cards issued of all banks in Romania offering them, 687,000. The bank entered the contactless niche two years ago and has had the most aggressive development strategy on the segment.
BRD was the first to issue such cards in 2010, and BCR followed suit in 2011. Five years later, BRD has 300,000 such cards in circulation, the second highest number of all banks offering them. It has the most extensive network of contactless POS-es, though, about 5,000.
BCR started issuing contactless cards in May 2011 and had reached 25,000 cards and a network of 1,100 terminals by last spring. It did not respond with up-to-date information to ZF’s request for details about its contactless portfolio.
Banca Transilvania entered the contactless niche last spring and is the latest bank to do so. It now numbers 150,000 contactless cards and a network of about 2,800 POS-es.
Credit Europe Bank, one of the biggest issuers of credit cards on the Romanian market has 117,000 paypass cards issued and about 4,200 contactless POS-es installed.
“Contactless payment technology is becoming important for both consumers and retailers because it provides comfort and speed in the purchasing process,” Credit Europe officials said.
The contactless card acceptance network started developing only in recent months and has now reached 12% of the total POS-es banks installed at retailers, so contactless card holders still use them mostly like standard cards.
The network is small because not all banks issuing contactless cards have installed contactless POS-es, as well. One such bank is Intesa Sanpaolo, which has 30,000 contactless cards in circulation but no contactless POS deployed.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)