Visa launches pilot project in Romania

Romanian Visa cardholders will be the first in Europe to benefit from a new solution piloted by Visa for financial institutions and merchants, which allows their customers to pay their purchases in installments, in stores or online, with a Visa credit card.

The Visa installment payment service in Romania is part of a broader global pilot project also offering a set of installment APIs, which is due for commercial roll-out in 2020. Eligible Visa cardholders will have the option to divide the total cost of eligible purchases into smaller, equal payments over a defined period of time. Merchants benefit from enhanced sales, simple integration, improved customer loyalty and overall cash flow, while offering their shoppers a friction-free payment experience at checkout.

“A survey conducted by Visa among Romanian consumers has shown that paying in installments is a major criteria when shopping. We have developed the installment solution to enable cardholders with installments at any participating merchant. Our ready-to-implement solution allows Visa merchants and credit card issuers to provide this functionality without having to spend considerable time and money to develop their own infrastructure from scratch. At the same time, merchants that integrate the solution will be able to offer consumers a secure, streamlined way to pay in installments, increasing sales and customer satisfaction.” said Cătălin Creţu, General Manager for Romania, Croatia, Slovenia and Malta at Visa.

Eligible Visa cardholders can choose their installment payment plan at the counter or at check-out, with participating merchants, and issuing banks can provide this service through the Visa network without the need to develop their own acceptance network.

The credit cards segment in the local market has constantly been developing in recent years and the payment behavior of consumers has evolved. The value of credit card payments in Romania increased by 80% in the last three years, to 12 billion lei in 2018, and the first six months of 2019 confirm the sustained growth trend, with an advance of 20% against the same period of last year, according to data from the National Bank. In terms of the number of transactions, over 200,000 payments are made on average, per day, with credit cards issued by banks in Romania.