Bogdan Tudorache
From now on, Banca Transilvania has in its portfolio environmentally friendly cards, made of recycled plastic and biodegradable elements. The first eco-friendly card in Romania is the BT Visa Classic debit card, made in collaboration with IDEMIA, a global leader in augmented identity and in the innovative payment technologies industry. In a first stage, the new cards will be issued in this version, and later there will be changed also the ones reissued as a result of the expiration of the card.
Banca Transilvania started with Visa Classic the transformation of its card portfolio because it is the most common card among its customers, with over 2.9 million cards in circulation, bank officials claim.
Transforming this portfolio into an eco-friendly one means reducing the carbon footprint by 36%. Also to protect the environment and reduce consumption, BT will replace existing cards with recycled plastic variants, as they expire.
The bank has proposed that by 2022 all issued cards will be eco-friendly, so that by 2025 almost the entire portfolio of BT cards will be made of recycled plastic and biodegradable elements. The bank will also continue to encourage the use of digital cards through BT Pay and other alternative payment instruments. Currently, 1 in 2 BT cards are included in digital format, and the trend is growing.
“We are happy to mark a new premiere on the market. By turning the cards into an environmentally friendly version, we help reduce the negative impact on it. The infrastructure and payment habits do not allow us to have only digital cards for the time being, but we are happy to have the physical support at Banca Transilvania in an eco-friendly way, during the transition to a 100% digital environment. It is an essential step for us, as a leader of the card market, in supporting the implementation of the circular economy, starting from the largest card portfolio, Visa Classic,” says Oana Ilaş, Executive Director of Retail Products Management & Development, Banca Transilvania.
BT is the leader of the card market in Romania, with a market share of approximately 23%.
