State-run institutions to pay their employees by cards

The Government has endorsed a decision stipulating that the institutions of the central and local administration will be able to pay the salaries of their employees by means of cards.

However, the normative act did not compel these institutions to introduce the system, Claudiu Lucaci, Government’s spokesperson told Ziarul Financiar.

“The payment of salaries through cards will expand depending on the financial possibilities of these institutions to resort to this payment tool. Some state-run institutions have already introduced this system, but this decision provides a general legal basis,” Lucaci specified.

For instance, the Education Ministry resorted to the services provided by Banca Comerciala Romana (Romanian Commercial Bank -BCR) in order to pay the students’ scholarships.

There were about 600,000 employees within the public administration system at the end of last year. Nastase-led Government planned to cut the number of central and local administration staff by 30%.

The salary payment by card might be extended to all the employees within the budgetary fields, provided that they should work in towns and cities, reads a Government release, without specifying any deadline for this process. Claudiu Lucaci added that the institutions were allowed the free choice of the bank to provide this service.