Visa: Contactless payments reach a fifth of all card payments in Romania

The share of contactless payments increased to 20% of all the Visa card payments in Romania in the third quarter of this year. By comparison, contactless payments represented 10% of the total card transactions at the beginning of the year. Almost 50% of all POS terminals in Romania accept contactless payments, according to a study carried out by Visa, reports local Agerpres. At the end of September this year, there were some 153,000 POS terminals in Romania, according to central bank data. This means that the number of contactless terminals exceeds 70,000. At EU level, the utilization rate of contactless cards increased to 52% in 2016 compared to 36% last year. The total number of contactless cards reached 165 million units, according to the same Visa study. About 3.4 million POS terminals accept contactless payments in Europe. editor@romania-insider.com