ALMOST TWO MILLION MASTERCARD AND MAESTRO CARDS IN CROATIA

ZAGREB, April 16 (Hina) - The number of the issued Maestro/Cirrus and MasterCard cards in Croatia came to 1.92 million at the end of 2000. Seven Croatian banks - Erste & Steiermaerkische, Hrvatska Postanska Banka, Privredna Banka Zagreb, Raiffeisenbank Austria, Rijecka Banka, Varazdinska Banka and Zagrebacka Banka - which issue and receive the said cards, registered 21.6 billion kuna of the turnover with Maestro/Cirrus in 2000 and 6.8 billion kuna with Eurocard/MasterCard. According to the plans of the Europay Hrvatska which gathers the seven banks, the number of issued Maestro/Cirrus and MasterCard cards in 2001 should go over two million. At the end of the last year the number of Maestro/Cirrus cards totalled 1.79 million, whereas MasterCards amounted to 123.5 thousand. The number of the former cards rose by 69 percent and the number of the latter increased by 40 percent. Until the end of 2000, there were 677 automatic teller machines which could receive the cards in Croatia, and 7,517 EFT POS terminals. Besides, 29,000 merchants and dealers received them as well. Europay International is a leading European payment system which has the right to conclude contracts with European banks on issuing and accepting Eurocard, MasterCard, Cirrus, Maestro and Eurocheque. It has initiated the establishment of Europay Hrvatska. (hina) ms