RomCard data: Romanian online payments with card, up 62% in Q1, to €148.4M

According to the latest data provided exclusively by RomCard for GPeC, Romanian online payments made by card increased 62% in the first three months of the year, compared to the same period last year. Only in Q1 2016, there were processed online payments via 3D Secure system which amounted to €148.4M, up from €91.2M in the same period of 2015.

In the same time, the number of online transactions made by card increased significantly in January, February and March 2016, to over 1.1M transactions monthly, up from 780.000 transactions last year.

According to RomCard officials, the increases are strongly connected with the decrease of the interchange commissions, announced publicly by  Catalin Cretu, General Manager for Romania, Croatia, Malta and Slovenia within Visa Europe, announcement made at GPeC on November 24 last year.

According to the signals we have, with the processing commissions decrease, more and more important online stores started to really encourage online payments with card. For a merchant, a buy paid online with a card is ideal, because it decreases its logistic costs (confirmation phones, time, salaries for personel in call-centers and so on) and, more than that, it is – most of the times, a safe transaction (the risk of refusing the package at the door is much smaller on client’s side). Due to the decrease of processing commissions, more and more stores can afford now to encourage the payment by card, so we can expect significant increases in the near future

Andrei Radu,

CEO GPeC