Erste Bank and Visa have rolled out the first
contactless card with transport application and loyalty rewards in
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).
The Smile contactless card will be introduced
by Banca Comerciala Romana (BCR), the largest Romanian bank by
assets and a member of Erste Group Bank, and has gone live four
weeks ago in the Romanian capital Bucharest.
So far, 5,000 cards have been issued.
The Smile card allows contactless payments of
up to €25 ($36) and also work on any contactless card readers
across Europe.
BCR’s contactless card deploys the same
technology as that of Transport for London’s Oyster cards and
allows card holders to pay for travel fares by swiping their card
past a reader.
“[This] is a testimony that banks in
Europe’s emerging markets can build products which leverage the
newest technology and represent models of insight to those
operating in more advanced markets,’’ said Bilge Burak, the head of
group card management at Erste Group.
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