Cashless Society Promoted At Cashless Festival

  • 16 Aug 2018 10:56 AM
  • Hungary Matters
Cashless Society Promoted At Cashless Festival
Ágnes Hornung, the finance ministry’s state secretary, urged Hungarians to cut down on their cash transactions at a press conference at the Sziget Festival – which went cashless in 2011 – on Tuesday.

Stock of cash in Hungary stands around 5,000 billion forints (EUR 16bn) at present, more than 14% of GDP, well over the 8% average for the European Union as a whole, Hornung said. Cash transactions cost the national economy some 450 billion forints a year, she added

 She noted that the government had recently approved a seven-year strategy to boost Hungarians’ financial savvy. State subsidies are also going to businesses that buy POS terminals which should raise the penetration rate for such devices close to 80%, she added.

Sziget Festival organiser Tamás Kádár said that festival-goers may pay merchants with their MasterCard contactless cards or with a wristband that can be topped up using the festival’s own mobile application.

Topups exceeded 1 billion forints by the festival’s fifth day, he added. Budapest’s Sziget Festival, a weeklong musical extravaganza on an island in the Danube, is expected to draw more than half a million visitors this year. This year’s event officially ended on Wednesday.

  • How does this content make you feel?

XpatLoop Media Partner

Hungary Matters

Launched in January 2014, this newsletter published on week days covers 'everything you need to know about what’s going on in Hungary and beyond', according to its publisher the state media agency MTI.