The number of POS transactions using Visa cards grew by over 30% in 2011, accounting for 37% of the total Visa card transactions, up from 32% in 2010, according to data published by Visa Europe.
The value of POS transactions using Visa cards increased 29.2%, making up 16.5% of the total value of Visa card transactions. The average value continued to decrease, down to EUR38.1, reaffirming the trend of using Visa cards for low-value payments.
Credit card holders generally shopped for basic products; the average value of POS transactions using credit cards decreased 6.6%, indicating that Romanians have cut down on expensive purchases, while the total value grew by more than 44%.
The business card segment recorded growth across all its indicators. More Visa business cards were issued (+19.4%), the value of transactions using these cards was higher overall (+50%) and considering only POS (+48.5%), while the number of retailer transactions also increased (+38.7%), pointing to a growing preference for cards on the part of companies.
Debit cards make up the largest share of Visa-branded cards in circulation in Romania. Almost 80% of the total purchases processed by Visa were made using debit cards.
In 2012, Visa will continue to encourage shopping using cards, through awareness and promotional campaigns, product and service launches, and will continue to widen its network, enabling the public to pay taxes by card.
In Europe, there are over 445 million Visa debit, credit and business cards in circulation. By the end of the fiscal year, Visa cards were used for payments and cash withdrawals worth EUR1,700 billion; 14% of the POS transactions in Europe were made using a Visa card and almost 80% of them using debit cards.
Visa Europe is owned and run by over 3,700 European member banks and was set up in July 2004. It is independent from Visa Inc., with an exclusive license in Europe, but the two companies operate in partnership to ensure global interoperability.