Almost.8 million bank cards are currently in circulation in Romania, according to figures provided by the National Bank (BNR), according to ING Financial News The increase rate in the first four months of this year was 158,000 cards a month, compared to 94,000 cards a month in the same period a year ago.

Bucharest accounted for 24 percent of the total number of cards at the end of April, up from 22.5 percent in April 2005 and 20.2 percent in April 2004.

A growing number of Romanians prefer to make payments by cards, which mainly include Visa, MasterCard and Euroline.

Transactions recorded at retail shops have grown by 105 percent to about eight million, while their value amounted to 455 million dollars, a 127 percent increase compared to the end of April 2005.

The overall value of transactions - both at ATMs and retail shops - has reached 5.4 billion dollars, marking an annual increase of 68 percent. There were 64 million such transactions at the end of this April, a 27 percent rise on end-April 2005.

source