Romania's top lender by assets BCR to increase number of cards by 20% by the end of the year

Banca Comerciala Romana (BCR), Romania's largest lender by assets, plans to expand the number of cards by 20 percent this year and to rise the transactions' volume on cards by 25 percent, the lender announced.

The bank posted a total number of operations of 4.5 million at the end of June, 15 percent higher than in the same month last year. The volume of transactions with BCR cards hiked 40 percent in the same interval, to approximately 1.5 billion lei.

BCR had 2.4 million cards issued by June 2008, up 5 percent compared to the similar period of the previous year. The debit cards totaled 2.23 million units and the credit cards 190,000.

The bank posted a 20.96 percent market share on the cards segment in the first half of 2008, a slight decrease from 21.74 percent in the previous year. BCR is leader on the debit cards market, with a share of 21.6 percent.

The lender saw a 21 percent year-on-year increase in its points of sale (POS) network to 13,900 units and a 14 percent climb in its ATM network to 1,582 units at the end of June.

Newsin