​BANK CARD USING GROWS IN MOLDOVA - NBM

Citizens of Moldova are more frequently using bank cards for buying and paying for goods and services, said Director of the National Bank of Moldova Department for Payment Systems Victor Susu.

At the “Fintech Moldova 2019” conference he said that the number of bank cards in 1Q2019 grew 7% against the equivalent period of 2018 and 40% against the equivalent period of 2017.

“In the first quarter of 2019, the number of bank cards in circulation reached 1.9 million. Over this period, the number of transactions, conducted via bank cards accounted for 14.5 million. The sum of transactions reached 13.9 million lei”, Susu said.

123 thousand cashless payments are daily conducted in Moldova by means of bank cards, which is 51% more than in 1Q2018, and 75 thousand operations on withdrawing cash from cards, which is 8% more than in 1Q2018.

“The number of cashless payments exceeded the number of transactions on cash withdrawal. This demonstrates that Moldovan citizens are increasingly often using bank cards for buying goods and paying for services. The average sum of a cashless payment on the issued cards accounts for 344 lei. Thus, bank cards began to be used even for conducting low-cost payments”, said NBM official.

He explained that this positive change was due to the implementation of new technologies, such as contactless cards.

“This trend is due to the convenience and security of these cards”, Susu said.

Infotag’s dossier: Currently, there are 18.4 thousand POS terminals in Moldova. Most of them accept contactless cards, which allow paying for goods in less than 4 seconds. In Moldova there are over 1.1 thousand ATMs.