Bancherul - BANCI / ENGLISH / Card Control Alert from OTP Bank � a premiere on the Romanian banking market

As a premiere on the Romanian banking market, OTP Bank expands its OTPdirekt � SMS Alert service with the Card Control option, which is an alert available for both debit and credit cards. This service offers its customers an extremely important advantage, a much more efficient control, due to the information sent directly on the mobile phone in real time, with regard to the available balance after each transaction.

The uniqueness of the new service provided by OTP Bank Romania is also due to the full information offered in real time: card�s number, date and hour of card usage, traded amount, type of transaction (shopping, cash withdrawal), as well as the location where the transaction was performed. In good technical conditions, the client receives the alert in less than 2 minutes since the use of the banking card, which assures a better control.

�Due to the multitude of information we offer, we are currently the only bank in Romania which provides its customers with such a real-time control tool for the use of banking cards. OTPdirekt � SMS alert is the best ally in the fight with time, information, security and mobility, as the customer receives all the information directly on his mobile phone and even as the operations are happening�, declares Silviu Florea, Manager Electronic Sales Channels, OTP Bank Romania.

By the Card Control service, OTP Bank Romania offers, as a premiere to its customers, both individuals and legal entities, �event card� messages. This ensures a high degree of security, warning the customers any time the card is being used (in stores, on the Internet or for cash withdrawals) and the PIN or CVV code is wrongly introduced, or when the transaction exceeds the available funds.

By expanding the facilities offered through OTPdirekt � SMS Alerts service, OTP Bank Romania brings added value to the OTPdirekt service, an ideal service for all types of clients, structured to answer to all their needs: Contact Centre, Internet Banking and SMS Alert. The service recorded a dynamic growth of the users number, three years after its launch on the market. Thus, compared to the similar period of last year, in the first semester of 2009, the number of OTPdirekt users reaches almost 10% of the total number of bank customers. Moreover, the number of users increased with 50%. In addition to the number of OTPdirekt users, the number of transactions and their volume also increased: compared to the similar period of last year, the number of transactions performed through OTPdirekt increased by 26%, while their volume went up by 17%.

OTP Bank Romania is a subsidiary of OTP Bank, the largest independent bank in Central and Eastern Europe. Outside Hungary, OTP Bank operates in Romania, Montenegro, Croatia, Bulgaria, Russia, Ukraine, Slovakia, Serbia. OTP Group serves almost 12 million customers in 9 countries, via 1,500 territorial branches, the ATMs network and the electronic system.