In value terms, withdrawals were still two and a half times higher than purchases, the MNB noted. Hungarians used their bank cards to make 168 mln purchases in the first half of the year, with about nine in ten made at local brick-and-mortar businesses, the fresh data show.

About 6 mln of the purchases made with domestically issued bank cards took place at merchants abroad. Online and phone orders accounted for about 13 mln of the total. The number of domestically issued payment cards reached almost 9 mln at the end of June. Around 30% had a contactless payment function. There were almost 91,000 POS terminals at the end of the period. About 42% could accept contactless payments. The number of ATMs in the country stood at 4,906.