Card payments made by foreigners to merchants in Romania are more than twice lower. At the end of March, they stood at RON640 million (EUR144 million), up 27% against the same interval of 2015, according to central bank data.
„Romanians’ card usage behavior changes completely when they travel abroad – they use cards more often at merchants rather than for cash withdrawals,“ said Catalin Cretu, Visa Europe’s general manager for Romania, Croatia, Slovenia and Malta.
According to Cretu, in the first quarter of 2016, the value of card payments at merchants abroad was 35% higher than the overall cash withdrawals from automated teller machines (ATMs). In Romania, card payments to merchants make up a little over 20% of the value of card transactions, and the rest is covered by ATM transactions.
Over the last years, card payments at POSs (points of sale) abroad and in Romania have increased faster than ATM withdrawals, considering that online payments have seen a gradual advance, as well as due to a change in the generation of cardholders and technological developments. Nevertheless, the amounts withdrawn from ATMs still account for the bulk of card transactions.