Romanian company Capital Financial Services has invested EUR 700,000 in adding a Prioripay card under Mastercard license to its money wire platform PioriPay, the company has announced. It aims to compete against large international money transfer services, and hopes it will issue 10,000 such cards by year-end.

PrioriPay has become the only payment processor in Romania which can issue its own cards under the Mastercard brand.

The Rumanian company promises this will be the fastest money wire from abroad to Romania, as well as the other way around, as transactions take two seconds to complete. The card can then be used to withdraw money at any ATM or to pay by card in retail units.

The company targets the many Romanians who work abroad and who need to send money home, who have been so far using the main money wiring services, such as Western Union and Money Gram. “We can say this is the fastest way to wire money to and from Romania,” said Ion Matei, general manager of PrioriPay.  To get this card, users have to first open a PrioriPay account, and then ask for the card to be issues in RON, EUR or USD. The PrioriPay website is available in Romania and in English.

Certain fees are applied to several operations via the system, but opening and managing the account are free of charge. It is free to send money to this account via a local bank transfer, and for international bank transfers to this account, the fee is of 0.25% of the transaction, plus EUR 5. It costs EUR 10 to issue the card, and several commissions are also applied for ATM withdrawals.

PrioriPay also has a partnership with the Romanian Post, which allows Romanians abroad to send money to Romania via their PrioriPay accounts. The recipient will receive the money in cash at home, via the E-Mandat service from the Romanian Post.

PrioriPay hopes to develop a spin-off, and issue co-branded cards for other companies, which would either target loyal customers, or subscriptions, payments, transfers or just gift cards. This niche could even bring the bulk of card issuances for PrioriPay: „We estimate that 85% of the cards we will issue will be co-branded, together with our partner companies,” said Ion Matei.

PrioriPay is a brand of Capital Financial Services SA, which was the first electronic currency issuer approved by Romania’s Central Bank.

Corina Chirileasa, corina@romania-insider.com