Sunday, November 28 2010 03:21
By end of Q3 2010 number of effective plastic cards in Armenia grew by 7% to 681432
ArmInfo. By the end of Q3 2010, the number of effective plastic cards totaled 681432, having annually increased by 6,8% or by 43430 cards. The press service of the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) reports that the lion's share fell on ArCa local cards and Visa international cards. The number of ArCa local cards made up 299352, having annually increased by 1,2% (by 3617 cards), Visa cards - 249508, the annual growing being 12% (26721 cards), MasterCard - 96660, the annual growth being 13% (11273 cards), and the number of other international cards annually grew by 5% (by 1819 cards).
According to the source, by the end of Q3 2010, a total of 2.9 mln operations worth 140 bln AMD were carried out with cards, the share of noncash operations being 7,5%. The total amount of operations with cards annually grew by 30% (by 33 bln AMD), and the number of operations - by 29% (by 647.4 thsd operations).
1.3 mln operations worth 52 bln AMD were carried out with ArCa, the volume of transactions annually grew by 18% and the number of transactions annually grew by 21%. A total of 936.4 thsd operations worth 55 bln AMD were carried with Visa cards, the volume annually grew by 46%. A total of 429.1 thsd operations worth 21 bln AMD were carried out with MasterCards, the volume of transactions annually grew by 35%. A total of 235.1 thsd operations worth 12 bln AMD were carried out with other international cards, the volume of these transactions annually grew by 1.7 bln AMD.
By the end of Q3 2010, the payment cards in Armenia were issued and served by 20 commercial banks. 19 banks are members of Armenian Card. Over the period under review 24 bancomats were installed, their total number by the end of Q3 2010 reached 778, of them 719 serve ArCa local cards. The number of POS- terminals is 3195, of them 450 are installed in the branches of the commercial banks. The number of imprinters is 25.