Denisa Mateescu, General Manager of MasterCard Europe for Romania and the Balkan region, believes that there should normally not be a negative effect on credit card demand. She cited Turkey as an example, where in spite of the recession the demand for credit cards has risen. The MasterCard representatives believes that the number of approvals for this segment will depend on how restrictive bank policies will be in terms lending, coupled with measures to be adopted by the central bank in this area.
According to the latest data published by the National Bank of Romania (BNR), card payments at points of sale (POS) have increased 32.5 percent in the second quarter year-on-year, to some 19 million transactions, worth an average RON 145 (some €34) per transaction. However, they withdraw almost three times that amount from ATMs.
Cristian Tudorancea, Vice President of CEC Bank, believes that Romanians will continue to be interested in credit cards, because they have begun to realize what the advantages of revolving credit are. CEC Bank manages a network of 760 ATMs and had some 714,000 active cards at the end of the first half of the year.
