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Raiffeisen Bank S.A. has launched a program in Romania that enables consumers to link Visa-branded prepaid cards to their mobile phones, John Mitchell, CEO of RevEurope, an Ireland-based payment-services firm also participating in the effort, tells CardLine Global. The bank hopes to attract young consumers who transact mainly in cash but who use the Internet. Consumers can buy cards at Raiffeisen branches in Bucharest and, in the future, from select merchants. Each card costs 18 Romanian new leu (US$6 or 4.30 euros), with a minimum initial load of 10 leu, Mitchell says. The bank plans to waive the card fee until the end of July. New cardholders must call customer service or go online to activate their cards. At that time, cardholders who choose to enroll in the mobile service provide a mobile-phone number to assign to their card account, Mitchell says. "Once enrolled, the cardholder can check the card balance, previous transactions or send funds loaded on the card directly from the handset with a simple text message," he says. The card is the first prepaid debit card issued by a bank in Romania, Raiffeisen and RevEurope say. CardLine Global was unable to confirm the claim, however. Raiffeisen is part of the Austria-based RZB Group.
