Payment card

"In the near future, it will be possible to pay for administrative services in Bulgaria with bank cards issued abroad.

This is already a fact in the Ministry of Electronic Government", said Minister Bozhidar Bozhanov, who has received many signals about the problem. The ministry's virtual POS terminal now accepts foreign bank cards.

Ljubljana – Consumers in five Central European countries, including Slovenia, have been using cashless forms of payment more often since the start of the Covid pandemic. Electronic payment is the most popular in Slovenia, where the majority of the surveyed residents would oblige retailers to offer at least one form of cashless payment.

The Hellenic Bank Association (HBA) urged customers to favor electronic transactions over visiting bank branches and to rely on card payments instead of cash, as a way to limit the transmission of the new coronavirus.

In its press release, the association said banks would continue their operations as usual and resupply ATMs with cash.

Credit and debit card transaction turnover grew almost 15 percent over the third quarter of the year on an annual basis, banishing fears that the growth rate of online transactions might slow to below 10 percent in 2019.

Card transactions added up to 11.4 billion euros in July-September, up 14.6 percent or 1.4 billion euros from the third quarter of 2018.

Greek banks are now imposing charges on virtually all their services and customers' transactions in an effort to offset their losses from interest takings, which have been in constant decline over the last few years.

The annual report of Mastercard - Masterindex provides new information about the Bulgarians' perceptions of payment methods, banking services and the frequency of their use. A survey, which was conducted this year, shows that almost every Bulgarian in the country has a debit card (98%), while the percentage of credit card holders is 40.

Use of credit and debit cards in Greece expanded 12.8 percent in the second quarter of 2019, but the average value of each transaction declined, according to data published on Tuesday by the Hellenic Bank Association.

Greek holders of debit cards making withdrawals from cash machines of other banks will as of July 20 be charged a commission that will range from 2 to 3 euros per transaction.

This will bring these charges into line with those imposed since last summer on foreign bank clients using Greek cash machines.

A double limit will be available today - April 12, for the owners of MasterCard bank cards for non-contact payments. Instead of the current BGN 25, they will be able to pay up to BGN 50  without entering a pin code, the company said.

There are a total of 214 million banking cards, including debit and credit cards, in Turkey that puts the country ahead of any nation in Europe, according to the deputy general manager of the Interbank Card Center (BKM).