Almost 45 mln cards issued in Romania, but only a quarter of them are active

The total number of bank cards in Romania increased by 2.8 million, in the last year, to a total of 44.8 million, at the end of the third quarter of 2014. However, only 10.65 million cards were active, 766,000 less than at the end of September 2013, according to data from Romania’s Central Bank BNR. Cash withdrawals continued to dominate card transactions in Romania in the third quarter, both in terms of number of operations – 57.73 million transactions at ATMs and 48.71 million at POS terminals, and in terms of value – RON 31.18 billion (some EUR 7 billion) worth of withdrawals at ATMs and transactions of RON 6 billion (EUR 1.3 billion) at POS terminals, reports local Agerpres. There were 10,905 ATMs in Romania at the end of the third quarter, up from 10,853 at the end of September 2013. The number of POS terminals also increased from 127,859 to 132,634. Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com