Chinese payment cards to arrive to Serbia – Cashless payments on the rise

At the end of 2016, the total number of payment cards issued amounted to 6,900,997, an increase of 9.4% compared to the previous year. If cards with the e-money function are taken into consideration (which are mostly prepaid cards for online payments), the total number reaches 6,965,354, and the growth achieved equals 10%. Last year, there was an increase in the number of active cards to 57% of the number of cards issued, whereas the share had been around 50% or below in the previous years, said Katarina Ocokoljic, Secretary of the Association for Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions at the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia.

On Friday, June 2, the traditional 15th Payment Cards 2017 event was held at the CCIS, where innovations in the payment card sector and cashless payments were presented. The usage of payment cards has been on the rise for years in Serbia and the positive trend is expected to continue in the next period, it was pointed out at the gathering.

As stated in the CCIS press release, debit cards dominate the structure of the payment cards issued with 84.14%, whereas the share of credit cards is 15.86%.

– After several years in which the average value of payment card transaction in Serbia was dropping, the trend was stopped. Compared to the previous year, only the credit card segment recorded a drop in average values – Ocokoljic explained.

As she pointed out, the trends in e-commerce are also positive. Compared to the previous year, there was a growth in both the number and the value of online transactions in purchasing goods and services in 2016. The total number of online payments for goods and services amounted to 3,852,840 in 2016, of which nearly 95% are payment card transactions, whereas 5% consists of payments using e-money.

Although the online turnover made by payment cards in Serbia has been growing dynamically in the past years, the number of transactions and the turnover of foreign sites is around three times larger compared to transaction and the turnover realized on local sites, Ocokoljic pointed out.

The national card system of China, UnionPay International, was presented for the first time in Serbia at the said event. In 2016, more than 6 billion credit and debit cards were issued within it, which is 1.5 billion more than the total number of cards issued by Visa and Mastercard. Keeping in mind that 135 million Chinese traveled abroad in 2016, of which 10 million to Europe, the possibilities of including UnionPay in the ATM and the receiving network caused great interest among the attendees.

As Blic reports, according to Orsolya Faludi of UnionPay International, the cards are expected to start being used in Serbia by 2019.

Privredna komora Srbije

Udruženje za bankarstvo, osiguranje i druge finansijske institucije PKS

cashless payments

cashless payment

payment cards

online purchase

Katarina Ocokoljic

payment card sector

usage of payment cards in Serbia

debit cards

credit cards

e trade

electronic trade

e money

payment by cards

UnionPay International

Orsolya Faludi

Chinese payment cards