Hungarians are becoming a digitally focused race after it was revealed nearly 100,000 pay for purchases with their mobile phones.
According to Világgazdaság, OTP Bank, Hungary’s largest commercial lender, has 35,000 clients registered to use its Simple mobile payment application. A further 10,000 Hungarians with accounts at other banks also use the Simple app by topping up a virtual payment card.
Purchases made using the Simple by OTP app jumped to 37 billion HUF (119m EUR) last year, demonstrating the huge success of the technology and reflecting the way banking is headed.
Gránit Bank, the first to introduce mobile payments in Hungary in 2016, told the newspaper that about one-quarter of the bank cards it issues are virtual. MKB Bank said it had issued “several thousand” virtual bank cards, and K and H Bank issued more than 14,000.