VTB Bank (Armenia) retains leadership on plastic cards market in terms of both number of cards and amount of transactions

ArmInfo. VTB Bank (Armenia) retains leadership on the plastic cards market in terms of both the number of cards and amount of transactions. By 1 April 2016, the number of active cards of the Bank totaled 496.6 thsd, with the total amount of transactions exceeding 210.3 bln AMD. The press office of the Bank has told ArmInfo that the Bank retains leadership by not only the total number of plastic cards but also by Visa cards - over 418.2 thsd as of 1 April 2016. At the same time, the Bank is among the TOP-3 by the number of MasterCards - over 78.3 thsd.

Due to the serious (almost 5-fold) year-over-year growth in active MasterCards amid moderate (8.7%) rise in active Visa cards, VTB Bank (Armenia) increased the total number of active cards by 23.8%. As a result, the amount of transactions with cards grew by 12.8% over year, mostly due to the 21.3% growth in ATM transactions.

By 1 April 2016, the share of Visa cards in the total number of active cards exceeded 84%, with the rest (16%) being MasterCards versus 96% and 4%, respectively, a year before. The Bank is in the lead in the number of payroll cards.

VTB Bank (Armenia) retains leadership in terms of pension card projects, using not only Visa but also MasterCards (4.2-fold year-over-year growth). Here the number of active cards is 81.8 thsd, with 63.3% being Visa cards (51.8 thsd).

In 2015, the Bank increased the total amount of plastic transactions by 12.8% (versus 32.8% growth in 2014) mostly due to 21.3% rise (versus 16.5% rise in 2014) in ATM transactions to 190.6 bln AMD. The Bank secured the biggest amount of ATM transactions as well.

As of 1 April 2016, VTB Bank (Armenia) had 157 ATMs, including 78 in Yerevan and 79 in the provinces.  The Bank has considerably enlarged its own network of POS-terminals - from 298 to 345. In addition, VTB Bank (Armenia) and ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE Bank have created a joint ATM network, offering the holders of Visa and MasterCard issued by VTB Bank (Armenia) to make use of ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE Bank at the same tariffs as in VTB Bank (Armenia) and vice versa. The joint network has 345 ATMs throughout Armenia. The Bank holds the second position by the number of ATMs and it has joined the top ten by the number of its own POS-terminals.

To note, before 2013 VTB Bank (Armenia) issued and serviced only Visa cards. In September 2013, it became a full member of MasterCard Worldwide and started issuing and servicing Cirrus/Maestro, MasterCard Standard and MasterCard Gold cards. The Bank also services ArCa local cards.

VTB Bank (Armenia) joined VTB Group in April 2004 and is fully owned by VTB Group, the second biggest bank in Russia. VTB Bank (Armenia) is one of the leaders of Armenia's banking sector. It has 67 branches all over the country (the largest branch network in Armenia).