Food stamps go digital: two million Romanians to receive prepaid cards

Newsroom 30/10/2014 | 09:51

Issuing companies and payment processors have already initiated the digitization process for food stamps. The only thing left to do is to design the legal requirements for the process of placing food stamp financial values on prepaid cards.

“Soon, those who receive food stamps will be able to cash in on the respective sums through prepaid cards”, according to Cosmin Vladimirescu, general manager Mastercard, quoted by economica.net.

Vladimirescu explains that companies that issue food stamps will be rid of the hassle of printing and implicitly will no longer have to worry about the logistical aspects of delivering the tickets.

“Retailers can benefit to, a card payment is considerably less time-consuming than a payment that involves food stamps, the sums will be capitalized completely, without adjustments like when you had food stamps with a fixed sum, the cash register roll out will be higher, offering smaller costs for all partners involved and a better control for users and for the Finance minister”, says Vladimirescu.

Two million Romanian employees currently receive food stamps, which raises the value of the market to EUR 1 billion. At present, the value of a food stamp is RON 9,35 and according to the law, an employee cannot use more than two food stamps per day. Once the law will be modified to include prepaid cards, this prerequisite can be eliminated.