Tuesday, October 18 2011 20:31
Number of bankcards in Armenia up 30.9% over year
ArmInfo. Armenian commercial banks issued 34918 cards within the national processing system ArCa, which is 73.7% higher than in September 2010. The number of active cards totaled 703.8 thousand in late September 2011 versus 537.6 thousand cards in Sept 2010 (a 30.9% Y-o-Y growth).
Armenian Card told ArmInfo banks issued 17154 ArCa cards in Sept 2011 (a 2.6fold growth versus Sept 2010), 10763 MasterCard cards (99.2% growth), and 7001 Visa International cards (13.1% growth). MasterCard active cards grew the highest over the year - 60.2% to 148.3 thousand cards as of Oct 1 2011. Visa International cards grew 32% in Sept 2011 versus Sept 2010 to 192.2 thousand and ArCa - 21.3% to 363.3 thousand.
According to ArCa, over September 2011 operations with 376.6 thsd cards or 64% of the total number of active cards were carried out (9.6% annual growth), particularly, with 214.4 thsd ArCa cards, with the y-o-y growth being 2.7% (72% of the total number of ArCa active cards); with 96.6 thsd Visa cards, with the y- o-y growth being 14.3% (60% of Visa active cards), and with 65.6 thsd MasterCards, with the y-o-y growth being 30.5% (52% of MasterCard active cards).
Armenian Card says that as of 1 Oct 2011 there were 3796 POS-terminals in the Armenian Card system (42.9% y-o-y growth), 365 of them in cash dispenser points (13% y-o-y growth), and 3431 in trade points (47.1% y-o-y- growth).
As of 41 October 2011, there were 778 ATMs in Armenia, with the annual growth being 20.2%. To note, the majority shareholder of ArCa is the Central Bank of Armenia. The other large shareholders of the organization are ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank, Armeconombank, and Ardshininvestbank. The other 14 commercial banks own 2% of shares each.
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