Development of the electronic banking services in Romania

Launching in Romania the banking products and services with long-distance access was based on image motives for the Romanian banks, domestic institutions or foreign banks branches. In this way, banks wanted to be innovative and they didn’t address necessarily to their clients’ needs. Once the long-distance payment instruments diversified and once the clients became aware of the benefits of such services, the electronic banking services corroborated with the new technologies seduces the clients with their expected benefits: comfort, promptness and accessible costs. As an alternative to the classic payment system, the fees attached to the virtual access are regularly smaller than the fees of the classic services. Strong development of the Internet and mobile telecommunications is fortunately also met in Romania, so some of the industries can benefit of the major advantages offered by the new technologies. So, banking industry lunched on the market in the last years the electronic banking services as a viable alternative for classic banking services which assume the client’s presence at the banking desk. In the last years, Internet became a popular distribution platform for electronic banking. Consumers of the electronic banking had easier access to their accounts in every moment. Still with this comfort, the e-banking adopting rates were very low in many countries. In Romania, of 39 banks that operate in the Romanian market, 21 offer their clients 28 long-distance payment instruments of which 14 are Internet Banking solutions, 12 are Home Banking solutions and 2 are Mobile Banking solutions. This paper aims to present the types of the electronic banking services in Romania comparative to other countries, their development in the recent years, their benefits for banks and customers, their costs and risks and their risk