Additional incentives considered for card use

The Finance Ministry is planning to offer new incentives to encourage Greeks to use credit and debit cards in their daily transactions (besides qualification for a personal allowance), such as lottery prizes and further tax discounts for both taxpayers and businesses.

Ministry officials say that just offering a tax-free allowance through the use of cards is not enough to convince Greeks to start using cards for most or all of their transactions. For that reason the government is now in negotiations with the country’s creditors with the aim of making card and online payments more attractive to taxpayers.

The ministry is also seeking the right incentives, such as extra tax discounts for businesses that post high earnings from card payments. An official told Kathimerini that a proposal for the creation of special accounts for companies from which funds cannot be confiscated has been rejected, but added that special accounts will be created to be linked with card terminals and to receive all payments via debit and credit cards.