Bank of Valletta and MCP car park have reached an agreement whereby patrons of the car park in Valletta will be able to pay for their parking fees using BOV Cards. Cashlink, Visa and MasterCard, together with all other cards accepted on the BOV merchant network, including the APS Premier and American Express Cards, can now be used at the MCP car park.

Speaking about the significance of the agreement reached between Bank of Valletta and MCP car park, BOV head of card services John Pollacco said that debit and credit cards are modern payment methods that are becoming increasingly popular. Although card payments are still not as popular in Malta as they are on the continent, the bank is noticing a sustained trend towards the use of “plastic money” instead of cash.

“We are delighted that MCP, a large scale car park, is now accepting BOV cards. This means that paying car park charges has now become even more convenient and MCP customers have a more straightforward and efficient payment system at their disposal”, said Mr Pollacco.

“Our objective is to keep encouraging people to use cards instead of cash. In Malta, we still have a predominantly cash-based society and we are still behind the levels of card use that one finds in Europe. It is encouraging to note, however, that more and more people are starting to use cards to effect payments, thus taking advantage of the major benefits that card payments offer to the cardholder. These include, among other things, purchase protection insurance and travel insurance related to the purchase of consumer goods and travel services respectively,” Mr Pollacco concluded.

Saviour Ellul from MCP car park said that the decision to start accepting payment by BOV cards was taken in order to widen the payment options available to the thousands of car owners who use the car park every day.

“By accepting card payments through BOV we are able to offer our customers added value and more convenience, and we are confident that this payment mechanism will prove to be popular with many of our customers,” Mr Ellul concluded.