Over 10,000 Romanians transition to electronic meal tickets in November

Newsroom 26/10/2015 | 15:51

Over 100 companies employing some 10,000 people have already moved from the classical printed meal tickets to electronic ones, emitted on a card by Edenred, the company announced.

Edenred is the Ticket Restaurant meal tickets provider in Romania, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Slovakia, Austria, Greece and Turkey. Internationally there are already 26 million users of the meal cards, while Romania is the 19th country to join the trend among the 42 in which the company is active.

In Romania, over 35,000 companies issue meal tickets for their 1 million employees.

“For large companies with many employees, cards are an excellent option for simplifying the granting of non-wage benefits as they no longer need to physically distribute vouchers, but monthly recharge the card through a few clicks. At the same time, we believe that the card vouchers bring real benefits for small and medium enterprises, which through the transition to meal cards save time and simplify their operations, ” said Vianney du Parc, General Manager of Edenred Romania.

Nationally, 100 companies from 30 counties made the transition from meal vouchers on paper to vouchers on the card, most with headquarters in Bucharest, Mures, Timis, Cluj, Brasov, Constanta and Satu Mare. Companies that opted for electronic tickets are active in areas such as IT, consulting, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, trade, engineering and maintenance activities.

At the moment, there are over 4,000 affiliate units accepting the electronic vouchers, including supermarket networks like Cora, Auchan, Profi, Mega Image, Shop&Go, Penny Market, Penny XXL, Selgros Cash&Carry, Billa, Real, CrisTim, but also chains of restaurants, pizza places and fast across the country, such as McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, Salad Box, Oro Toro by Osho, Chopstix, Paul, Luca, Li-Wu, Presto Pizza, Dristor, Zao, Bucate pe roate, City Grill, La Mama, Domino’s Pizza, Speed Pizza, Calif, Lunch Box, Trick Shot and others.

Ticket Restaurant meal cards issued by Edenred are developed and operate similarly to MasterCard bank cards without having a bank account associated with it, so they do not require management costs or fees for transactions. The cards make use of the contactless technology which allows for rapid payments without the need to introduce the PIN for payments below RON 100 within the units that display the contactless logo. For transactions above RON 100 the PIN code is required.

In Romania, meal vouchers are the most used non-wage benefit – about 2 million workers currently receive paper vouchers. They are exempt from labor and employers’ taxes (the only tax applied is the 16 percent wage tax), the amount granted varying from employer to employer. The monthly value of meal vouchers for an employee is about RON 200, the company estimates, which represents more than a quarter of the net minimum wage.

Cards and meal vouchers on paper have identical tax regulations and will continue to co-exist.

Sodexo announced it would also issue electronic meal vouchers, expecting 30 percent of all vouchers issued by it to be electronic within a few years.

Natalia Martian

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