Thursday, April 19 2012 15:28
Number of active plastic cards in Armenia up 34.2% to 817.6 thousand versus March 2011
ArmInfo. The number of plastic cards issued by the ArCA member-banks grew 21.6% versus March 2011 to 38,444 cards. The number of active cards for late March 2012 totaled 817.6 thousand versus 609 thousand cards in March 2011 (up 34.2%).
The Armenian Card told ArmInfo, in March banks issued 19688 ArCa system cards (up 70.4% versus March 2011) and 11,217 MasterCard plastic cards (13.9% growth), 7, 538 Visa plastic cards (down 26.2%).
A total of 561,5 thousand active cards were used in transactions in average in March or 69% of total active cards (37.1% growth for March 2011). In particular, 303.2 thousand ArCa plastic cards or 72% of the total active ArCa cards were used (up 25.6%), 138.1 thousand Visa cards of 64% of total active Visa cards (up 27.5%), and 120.3 thousand MasterCard plastic cards or 67% of total active MasterCard cards (2fold growth). As of April 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 35.4%), including 502 at cash dispensing points (12.65 growth) and 4494 at the commerce/service points (38.6% growth).
As of April 1 2011 there were 865 active ATMs in Armenia, which was 24.6% more than for the same period of 2011. 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.