In the last 12 months, Moldovans used their credit or debit cards to buy goods and services worth a total 56.6 billion lei, with card payments accounting for 30% of the total, estimates economist Veaceslav Ioniță on his blog.

“During this period, our revenues were a little over 200 billion lei, and I estimate the expenses at 190 billion lei. Consequently, of the total payments made, 57 billion lei or 30% were made using bank cards, and the remaining 133 billion lei were cash payments”, says Ioniță.

According to him, the share of card payments has doubled in the last two years alone. Whereas in 2020, Moldovans paid by card only 15% of their purchases, now the share reached 30%. In 2010, less than 2% of all purchases were paid by bank card.

40.9 billion lei are payments with cards issued in Moldova. To this, 2.8 billion lei is added from foreign card payments made by Moldovans here in the country. “As a rule, these are foreign cards owned by our relatives abroad, but which they passed on to relatives here at home”, the economist says.

In the last 12 months, Moldovans made international purchases worth 13 billion lei using cards. Of this amount, approximately 8.2 billion lei was for online purchases. The remaining 4.8 billion lei are expenses incurred abroad during business or leisure trips.