Thursday, April 14 2011 19:52
In March 2011 Armenian banks issued almost equal quantity of local and international cards
ArmInfo. In March 2011 the Armenian banks issued almost an equal quantity of local and international cards, with a slender majority of ArCa and Visa, which is conditioned by the launch of the governmental program on noncash pension payment, including by means of cards, starting from the current month.
Armenian Card (ArCa) told ArmInfo that in March a total of 11,554 ArCa cards were issued (31.3% annual growth) and 10,218 Visa cards (35.9% annual growth). At the same time, the number of MasterCards issued in March was 9,845 (18.8% annual decline). In March 2011 the banks issued 31,617 cards (11.1% annual growth). In the structure of active cards MasterCard occupies the leading positions by its annual growth (March 2011 vs. March 2010) - by 69.5% to 125.6 thsd cards; Visa ranks next - by 46.8% to 172.7 thsd cards; and ArCa cards annually grew by 6.9% to 310.8 thsd cards. The total number of active cards issued by ArCa member banks, annually increased by 26.2% by late March 2011 and amounted to 609,022 cards, of them 51% fell on ArCa, 28.4% - on Visa, and 20.6% - on MasterCard.
According to the source, within the period under review operations with 409.7 thsd cards, or 67% of the total number of active cards were carried out (27% annual growth), including 241.4 thsd ArCa cards (17.8% annual growth), 108.3 thsd Visa cards (43.3% annual growth), 60 thsd MasterCards (42% annual growth).
Armenian Card says that as of 1 April 2011 the number of trade/service and cash dispensing points in the Armenian Card system (bancomats exclusive) made up 3,175 (34.6% annual growth), of them 345 being cash dispensing points (10.9% annual growth), and 2830 - trade/service points (38.3% annual growth). By 1 April 2011, the number of POS-terminals made up 3,689 (37.2% annual growth), of them 3,458 POS- terminals served ArCa cards, 2,062 served Visa cards, and 3,156 served MasterCards. As of 1 April 2011, there were 694 ATMs in Armenia (14.5% annual growth), all of them served ArCa cards, 522 served Visa cards, and 613 served MasterCards.
To note, 66% of Armenian Card's shares belong to the Central Bank of Armenia, the rest of the shares belong to the 17 ArCa member banks (2% to each of them).
To recall, 13 Armenian banks and the Armenian Ministry of Labor and Social Issues signed an agreement on free provision of pension cars and service of pensioners: Areximbank-Gazprombank Group, ACBA- Credit Agricole Bank, ARARATBANK, Ardshininvestbank, Armenian Development Bank, Converse Bank, ArmBusinessBank, Armeconombank, Mellat Bank, Unibank, Prometey Bank, VTB Bank (Armenia), BTA Bank.
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