The STAR Forte card, 100% online: can be obtained in just a few minutes via BT Pay and used immediately for purchases

• BT customers can get their shopping card in about 10 minutes via the BT Pay app.
• The experience of a customer who wants a STAR Forte card is now 100% online: from applying for the card and getting it, to paying for purchases and managing the card.
• STAR Forte is the most popular shopping card, which offers the possibility to buy in up to 24 interest-free instalments or to accumulate STAR points with programme partners.
• More than 550,000 STAR cards are in the pockets of Romanians, and 1 in 2 is digital, including BT Pay.
• The BT Pay app has over 1.5 million users, +80% compared to the same period last year.

Banca Transilvania's customers can apply online for the STAR Forte shopping card through the BT Pay app, which means access to money and card in about ten minutes. The option will be available to customers gradually, within about a week. The launch is part of the bank's strategy to constantly come up with remote banking alternatives.

Part of Banca Transilvania's STAR loyalty programme, the STAR Forte card comes with the following benefits for customers: loans of up to RON 25,000, purchases in up to 24 interest-free instalments or loyalty points at over 17,000 retailers, both physical and online.

Customers will receive the physical card at the desired address or at a BT unit, the digital version of the card having the advantage that it can be used immediately, through BT Pay. In BT Pay, customers have at their fingertips all the information about STAR Forte: balance; number of STAR points accumulated; card data; number of instalments still to be paid; transactions made, grouped by category; monthly payment obligations and offers from STAR partners, and for online payments they can confirm the transaction directly from their phone.

The STAR Forte card is intended for Romanian citizens with a salary income and who have been working for at least 3 months with their current employer. For the online flow, the bank takes into account the income category by which it can offer the fastest product to a significant number of customers, namely salary. In Banca Transilvania's units, people with a much wider range of incomes - salaries, dividends, rents, pensions, etc. - can apply for STAR Forte.

"We have big ambitions in terms of the bank's digital transformation. Our plans are mainly related to bringing most of the product origination processes into the digital environment, so that customers will be able to order more and more products and services online, including by phone. Today's launch is a new step in offering customers much more convenience, thus opening up even more access to banking", says Gabriela Nistor, Deputy General Manager Retail Banking, Banca Transilvania.

STAR Forte is Banca Transilvania's first credit card, launched in 2003. More than 550,000 credit cards are used by the bank in total, and 1 out of 2 cards is used in digital format.