Monday, July 23 2012 14:33
Number of active plastic cards in Armenia up 37.7% for June 2012 versus June 2011
ArmInfo. The number of plastic cards issued by the ArCA member-banks grew 69% versus June 2011 to 32,822 cards. The number of active cards for late June 2012 totaled 885.2 thousand versus 642.9 thousand cards in June 2011 (up 37.7%).
The Armenian Card told ArmInfo, in June banks issued 11913 Visa Cards (almost twofold growth versus June 2011), 11389 ArCa system cards (up 21% versus June 2011) and 9,520 MasterCard plastic cards 2.4- fold growth (138.5%).
In the structure of active plastic cards, MasterCard retained leadership by the annual growth (June 2012 versus June 2011) - 61.4% to 203.1 thousand cars as of July 1. Then goes ArCa - 32.4% to 444.6 thousand cards and Visa - 31/1% to 237.5 thousand cards.
By data of ArCa, in average in June 627.4 thousand cards were used in operations or 71% of total active cards (up 44.3% versus June 2011). In particular, 332.6 thousand ArCa plastic cards or 75% of the total active ArCa cards were used (up 30.5%), 157.3 thousand Visa cards or 66% of total active Visa cards (up 36.9%), and 137.4 thousand MasterCard plastic cards or 68% of total active MasterCard cards (over 2fold growth). As of July 1 2012 the number of POS-terminals at the commerce/service and cash dispensing points (exclusive of ATMs) operating in the ArCa system totaled 4996 (up 36%), including 539 at cash dispensing points (16.4% growth) and 4946 at the commerce/service points (38.5% growth).
As of July 1 2011 there were 900 active ATMs in Armenia, which was 20.2% more than for the same period of 2011. All the ATMs serve ArCa cards, while only 802 serve Visa and 813 - MasterCards. Armenian Central Bank is the majority shareholder of ArCa alongside with ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank, Armeconombank and Ardshininvestbank. The remaining 14 banks hold by 2% shares.
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