Want a plastic card?

Pay up. Banks are pushing clients towards digital cards.

Phones, smartwatches and even payment rings are pushing traditional plastic bank cards out of wallets. Tokenised digital cards offer customers a faster and more convenient way to pay, while cutting costs for banks and reducing the environmental footprint of issuing physical cards.

Last November, the Slovakia's Payment Card Association registered more than 2.1 million active digital cards, a year-on-year increase of 34 percent.

Digital, or virtual, cards are a global phenomenon. According to the Research and Markets company, the volume of payments made with them rose by 19 percent last year to reach $675 billion.

Banks in Slovakia are responding to the trend proactively by financially motivating clients not to order a physical payment card at all.