Operation of the domestic payment system
2.1 Development of payment methods and instruments
The coverage of the payment infrastructure did not change significantly; access to the electronic payment infrastructure remained largely the same both on the customer and the beneficiary side. Although the number of payment accounts held by natural persons declined by about 300,000 in 2014, compared to the 9.4 million total number of accounts, this contraction cannot be considered significant. The share of debit cards within the stock of payment cards dropped slightly during the year but, with a roughly corresponding increase in the number of credit cards, the number of cards did not change noticeably and remained close to 9 million. Similarly, developments in the payment card acceptance network were also more or less in line with the trends from previous years. In 2014, the number of merchants accepting payment cards rose by less than 1 per cent, while the number of POS terminals was up 3 per cent. Although this represents a slowdown compared to the growth rate of previous years, modernisation of the infrastructure continued with the large-scale installation of
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In 2014, domestic electronic payment methods developed in line with the trends from previous years, and the turnover of electronic transactions continued to steadily increase. The volume of payment card purchases also continued to increase: there were 359 million purchases with domestic cards in 2014, up 16 per cent compared to the previous year. Consistent with the trends from previous years, there was a moderate increase in the number of credit transfers, which approached 300 million in 2014. Similarly, 2014 saw a slight upward shift in the use of core direct debit, with a 2.4 per cent increase in the number of transactions compared to the previous year. The number of cash withdrawals was down 8 per cent (Chart 2).1
Chart 2 Turnover of main transaction types related to payment accounts
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2.1.1 Turnover of main payment instruments
Card payment Credit transfer Cash withdrawal Direct debit
contactless terminals. By contrast, the rapid expansion of card payments on the Internet continued: at nearly 6,700, the number of online points of sale rose by 47 per cent in 2014. There were no material changes in the cash withdrawal infrastructure: while the number of ATMs increased by 1 per cent, POS terminals installed in branches and post offices fell by 1.5 per cent. Based on a 2014 survey2 on households’ payment habits, bank account and bank card coverage in the household segment is high. Of the adult population, 76 per cent have access to a bank account and 72 per cent have bank cards; at the household level this ratio is even higher. These values are not very different from the results of previous surveys, suggesting that the recent decline in the number of payment accounts can be primarily attributed to the rationalisation of households’ access to financial services: in order to reduce service charges, households terminated their unused secondary accounts. When asked for their reasons, the majority of unbanked respondents stressed that they did not need a bank account or
T he detailed payment statistics are included in the payment table set available on the MNB’s website: http://english.mnb.hu/Statisztika/dataand-information/mnben_statisztikai_idosorok/mnben_penzforgalmiadat_en/payment-data 2 Tamás Ilyés – Lóránt Varga: An analysis of the socio-demographic factors influencing the payment habits of Hungarian households. Financial and Economic Review, June 2015. 1
Payment Systems report • June 2015
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