Card market reaches 4,5 million units

The Romanian market of electronic payment instruments reached 4.5 million cards at the end of July, according to the reports filed with the National Bank of Romania (NBR). In July, banks issued 124,000 new cards. The 4.5 million debit and credit cards point to an advance of 21.6% as compared to the level registered in December 2002. The number of valid cards climbed 2.8% month-on-month in July alone. The upward trend of the card market will be supported during the second half of this year by the entrance of a powerful player, UniCredit Romania, which is getting ready to complete its product portfolio with debit and credit cards. At the same time, Banca Romaneasca is to launch its first credit cards this autumn. ROL-denominated cards hold the highest weight, as there are about 4,459,000 units issued. In this context, foreign currency-denominated cards account for less than one percentage point (0.94%) of the total volume of valid cards, as there are only some 42,300 of them. Things are slightly different in Bucharest. Most of the foreign currency-denominated cards issued by banks were destined to Bucharest customers. ZF