Credit transfer and account management services accounted for nearly 25% and 20% of payment service revenues, respectively, in the second quarter. Revenues from payment card acceptance rose by more than 15% from a year earlier to slightly less than HUF 10.6 bln.

Interchange fees collected from merchants and transmitted to issuing banks amounted to nearly HUF 2.9 bln. Revenues from fees related to POS terminals amounted to HUF 292 million. Other revenues accounted for HUF 7.4 bln.

The strong increase in the volume of payment card transactions continued, at 25%, in Q2. Contactless purchases continued to gain ground, accounting for more than three-quarters of total payment card transactions.

In Q2, the number of payment accounts was nearly 10.6 mln, a slight increase from the previous quarter. Within this, the number of consumer accounts used primarily for payment purposes was more than 6.6 mln. The number of domestic payment cards, at nearly 9 mln, was broadly unchanged; however, the number of contactless payment cards continued to rise. Nearly 77% of domestic payment cards offered contactless payment functionality at the end of the quarter.

The number of POS terminals operating at physical merchant acceptance points increased by more than 6% in Q2 from the previous quarter. The increase in the number of online acceptance points was 4%. Some 86% of the 146,000 terminals in operation offered contactless payment functionality at the end of the period.

The volume of transactions conducted in the domestic acceptance network increased by more than 25% from a year earlier. Around 190 mln transactions were conducted with domestically issued cards in Hungary for a total value of HUF 1.355 trillion. The total value of the 139 mln contactless transactions was HUF 824 bln in Q2, an increase of 40% from the previous quarter and up 150% from a year earlier.

Online purchases conducted with payment cards increased by 36% year-on-year in Q2 to 13 mln transactions, with the volume of online transactions rising by nearly one-third.

Based on the latest data available on the first quarter, the number of instances of fraud committed using domestic payment cards was around 15,000, with total losses amounting to HUF 408 mln. Around 84% of fraud continued to be related to card not present (CNP) transactions, with nearly 86% of total losses tied to this type of transaction.