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Rural Romania is still "less attractive financially" for the banks, on Monday asserted Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu, adding that it is high time for at least an ATM to exist in each village or commune.
"Rural Romania is still too little attractive financially for you and I can understand this, but perhaps it is high time that apart from the church, the mayoralty, the school and the socialising place, so to say, there is at least an ATM in each village or commune. I am not asking you for pioneering or volunteering, I'm asking you to think to the huge potential of the rural area that is gathering currently half of Romania's population and, in my opinion, unlimited opportunities," Grindeanu told the participants in the Financial Market Forum.
According to the Premier, the payments and financial transactions through the digital technology are more and more frequent.
"If we look (...) at the evolution of the most developed countries, where such payments are almost exclusively online, we realise that our country, too in rapid steps, is heading to this direction. The advantages of these technologies do not surprise anybody, anymore - way less bureaucracy, shorter time allocated for transactions, cheaper financial-banking products and services for the people, a limitation of the grey economy and the growth (...) of our economy's attractiveness for the foreign investors," also stated Grindeanu.
The Financial Market Forum is organised on Monday in Bucharest by the Romanian Association of Banks (ARB). The event is attended by the National Bank of Romania (BNR)'s governor, Mugur Isarescu.
