Payment systems

The penetration of plastic money in everyday transactions has continued in the first quarter of 2019, but at a considerably lower rate than last year, as the presence of the card terminals is just for appearances for a significant number of professionals.

Bulgarian company phyre opens office in Romania, announced from there. The start-up offers a mobile phone payment service and a free transaction from one user to another through an application. phyre already has 25,000 active users in Bulgaria. The company has decided to expand its operations in Romania because of the similarity of the two markets.

Revolut now provides accounts in BGN, the Bulgarian currency, it became clear during the FinTech Summit, which took place in Sofia.

The EU Council, bringing together Member State Ministers, said it had adopted changes yesterday to align the costs of cross-border euro payments between eurozone and non-eurozone countries and increase transparency in charges for currency conversion services.

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).

The Bulgarian start-up company, Payhawk, has attracted investments of 1 million leva after a new round of financing. The financial technology company, which offers digital cost management solutions for small businesses has 9 different investors, reports money.bg

An ATM was targeted by unknown assailants in the early hours of Wednesday in Thessaloniki, in northern Greece.

Police said the ATM, which is located on Olympiados Street, was doused with flammable liquid and set on fire.

No arrests were made.

Police in Thessaloniki said on Thursday that they traced two suspected members of a ring believed to have tampered with nine ATMs which allowed them to steal people's card details, clone their cards and make multiple withdrawals from their accounts over the past two years.

The suspects, aged 33 and 41, are both foreign nationals, police said, without revealing further details.

The European Union has fined global credit card giant Mastercard 570 million euros ($647 million) for limiting competition between banks offering cheaper payment fees, reports AFP. 

Turkey's Halkbank has become the third state bank to declare a low-interest rate campaign for citizens to pay off their credit card debts.