Online payments by card total EUR 80.5mln in first half of 2011

Newsroom 07/07/2011 | 18:38

Online payments by card reached a total value of EUR 80.5 million in the first half of the year, which represented 18 percent growth compared to the same period of last year.

The number of transactions totaled 1.3 million, which represented a slight growth of 8 percent, according to statistics made by Romcard.

Online payments are still dominated by mainly orders for tourism packages and plane tickets, bills for utilities, services and telecommunications.

The average growth of the entire market this year was 6 percent but there were some domains where the growth was higher than 30 percent.

Thus, the sector of services posted 63 percent growth in the number of transactions compared to the same period last year, sales of IT&C products increased by 37 percent, flower sales increased by 28 percent and books increased by 26 percent. The NGO sector (donations by card) also increased by 27 percent.

“If until now there was growth especially in the ‘star’ domains of the industry, the evolution posted by segments such as the social segment, flowers, books and gifts shows that users resort to online payment for usual day to day purchases. It is a good sign on the market and this should be supported and encouraged by all the players in the industry,” said Daniel Nicolescu, CEO ePayment, PayU Group.

The ePayment platform processed over 1 million transactions with a total value of EUR 71.2 million. The number of people who chose to pay online via ePayment grew by 10 percent compared to the same period last year.