Payment

Dozens more professions will soon be forced to install and operate credit and debit card terminals. Sources say the Finance Ministry is expanding the obligation of accepting card payments to more professionals in a decision to be published by the end of the year, and that businesses included in the measure will have a three-month grace period for compliance.

Tourists are being encouraged to pay with plastic during their holidays in Greece - and to always ask for a receipt - by a new campaign from the country's tax authority.

The "Apodixi_Please" (Receipt, Please) campaign of the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE) is being promoted on posters and online (aade.gr/apodixi).

The compulsory installment of card terminals by businesses and the association of the income tax discount with payments by credit or debit cards have led to a considerable increase in tax revenues.

The Greek state takes more than twice as long to pay its suppliers as the law dictates. In doing so it deprives them of precious liquidity at a time when other sources of funding - such as bank credit - are extremely limited.

Card transactions increased some 40 percent in the first quarter of the year compared to the same period in 2017.

The Finance Ministry has scheduled its next receipt lottery for January 30.

The ministry's Independent Authority for Public Revenue announced the draw on Tuesday will concern the online transactions that took place in December 2017. This concerns payments via credit and debit cards and all forms of electronic payments.

Today expires the deadline for payment of the last installment for building tax and vehicle tax for 2017.

The municipality reminds that a payment can be made in each of the 22 District Directorates of the Municipal Income Directorate in Sofia, regardless of the address of the property.

Payments over the Internet or via your mobile phone will become more secure from abuse. This will be provided by a new law on payment systems, which has already been approved by the Council of Ministers.

One of the options in the law is that payment service providers will introduce identification of the payer through his fingerprint or the iris of the eye.

Fines from the Traffic Police can now be paid online as well - through the "Easypay" platform, announced Dnevnik.

Since last week, tens of thousands of extra businesses in Greece have joined the ranks of those which are obliged by law to be able accept payments by debit or credit card. The deadline for them to install card machines passed on July 28 and any which are not able to accept electronic payment from customers face fines of up to 1,500 euros.