Friday, July 27 2012 15:07
ArCa cards remain the most operative in Armenia
ArmInfo. The cards of the Armenian Card (ArCa) National Payment System remain the most operative in Armenia despite the active expansion of international counterparts.
According to ArmInfo's Armenian Banks in Card Business bulletin, though having lost 6% of the market in the last two years, ArCa still has 53% of it and remains the cheapest instrument for wage and pension programs.
ArmInfo's experts believe that Armenia's card market is preparing for a new qualitative jump: in 2013 ArCa will be fully modernized, with priority to be given to new innovative products and automation. As a result, the system's non-interest expenses will be reduced.
But since the system is beginning to spend more on its quality, its commission charges will also grow. Now that there are as many as 1,000,000 cards in a country with just 2,800,000 people, the system needs to be more active in its search for innovative solutions.
In terms of technology, Armenia's market is facing two seemingly contradictory trends: on the one hand, ArCa is improving its processing center, while, on the other, three banks are creating their own centers. This, according to ArmInfo's experts, proves that the players of this market are very serious about its future.
Thus, in its way to technological progress Armenia's card market needs better and newer instruments and infrastructure.
ArmInfo has worked out a transaction activity ratio and revealed the following: banks with medium and small number of cards are leaders in terms of the volume of transactions, which means that the quality component of business prevails over the quantity component. Thus, top five banks in terms of the average size of transactions per card (which is 74,000 drams or $192 in average in the market) are Ameriabank, Armbusinessbank, HSBC Bank Armenia and Areximbank GPB Group. Byblos Bank has joined the leaders recently.
In the middle of 2012 there were nearly 900,000 active cards in the country, with over 820,000 being issued by the Armenian Card system (mainly salary cards). There are 5263 POS-Terminals throughout Armenia, with 4959 serving ArCa, 2839 - Visa, 4709 MasterCartd and 1920 - American Express. In total, 18 banks operate in the market of local cards ArCa, 12 banks in Visa and 15 in MasterCard market.
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