Over three quarters of Romanian pay their bills at the supplier’s counter
Bucharest, July 16th, 2010 - In June 2010, GfK Romania made an Omnibus study that surveyed payment methods preferred by the Romanians for bills that are paid in the household or individually.
The most commonly used method remains the direct one, at the supplier’s counter, 77% of the people between 18 and 65 dealing with the household bills payment resorting to it. Other methods used are: payment at the Post office (39% of respondents) and the bank tellers (25%). Only 5% of those dealing with the payment of the bills in the family use the ATMs for payments, and 2% use the Internet banking services. 11% of respondents use the payment through the available services in the shops or petrol stations.
For the utility bills, the most used payment method is the one at the provider’s counter - more than half of those who pay water bills go directly to the provider to pay it and approximately 40-45% of those who pay gas, electricity or sanitation bills make the payment directly to the provider. For the water bill, other methods used are: payment at the bank tellers (10%) or Post office (9%). For the gas bill, in addition to paying at the counter of the bank (25%) and Post office (12%), they also use payments in shops and gas stations (8%) and bank ATMs (6%). For electricity, in addition to the payment at the counter, they use to a great extent, the Post offices (35%) and at the banks (15%).
Among those who pay bills for household telecommunications services (Internet, television, fixed telephony) 34% used to pay all these services simultaneously. They prefer to go directly to the counter of the supplier (66%), the Post office (18%) or at the bank tellers (10%).
The mobile phone bill is also paid in a very high percentage to provider’s counter (55%), at the bank (18%) or in stores and gas stations (11%).
The respondents choose the payment at the provider’s counter because it is a safe method (27%), out of habit (21%) or because it is simpler (21%). The reasons why the payment at the Post office is chosen are related to the fact that the post office is close to home or office (31%), it is simple to use (15%) or comfortable (15%). Those who opt for the bank tellers say that this method is simple (26%) or fast (20%), but that they also choose it because they do not have a bank card or they do not know how to use it (14%). Only 6% of the respondents pay their bills by card, most of them preferring to use cash.
A household spends an average of 340 lei per month to pay utilities and telephone service, Internet and television. Higher amounts are spent in Bucharest, where the average is around 370 lei, while in Moldova and Oltenia considerably lower amounts are spent - an average of 270 lei in Moldova and 255 lei in Oltenia. To this, we can add about 61 lei for the payment of the mobile phone for each family member using this service. For the mobile phone they spend slightly less in Moldova (about 50 lei) and slightly more in Bucharest (about 74 lei).
The information comes from GfK Omnibus survey conducted in June 2010 on a sample of 1.000 people in urban and rural areas. Results are representative of Romania's population aged 18 and older with a margin of error of + / -3%.
GfK Romania
GfK Romania, founded in 1992, is an integral part of GfK Group. For over 10 years, GfK Romania has been the number 1 market research institute in Romania. Its activities are structured into five segments: Custom Research - Ad Hoc qualitative and quantitative research for a wide range of industries (consumer goods, telecommunications and IT, finance, retail, tourism, automotive, industrial goods), Consumer Tracking – continuous research for consumer goods, Retail and Technology - continuous research for durable goods, Media - qualitative and quantitative research on the consumption of media products and Healthcare- qualitative and quantitative research in all medical fields.
Founded in 1934, as the first market research company in Germany, GfK Group has today more than 150 branches, in 100 countries, on five continents. GfK Group is one of the largest market research organizations in the world. For further information, visit the website: www.gfk-ro.com
