2026 will be a year of difficult adjustments rather than accelerated growth, and Romania enters this period with a more fragile consumer than the European average. At the same time, digital payments remain one of the few areas with clear structural growth potential, even in a challenging macroeconomic environment, as Adolfo Laurenti, Principal European Economist at Visa. At the European level, Visa data point to a consumer in a state of relative stability: spending is no longer contracting