Thursday, May 24 2012 22:10
Number of active plastic cards in Armenia up 35.8% to 836.1 thousand versus April 2011
ArmInfo. The number of plastic cards issued by the ArCa member-banks grew 36.8% versus April 2011 to 31,591 cards. The number of active cards for late April 2012 totaled 836.1 thousand versus 615.4 thousand cards in April 2011 (up 35.8%).
The Armenian Card told ArmInfo, in March banks issued 12255 ArCa system cards (up 93.4% versus April 2011), 12,205 MasterCard plastic cards (15.9% growth), and 7, 131 Visa plastic cards (up 14.6%).
MasterCard was the leader in terms of the growth for April 2012 versus April 2011 - 52.8% to 186.6 thousand cards. Then goes ArCa - 35.4% to 430.1 thousand cards, and Visa - 24.9% to 219.4 thousand cards.
A total of 590,4 thousand active cards were used in transactions in average in April or 71% of total active cards (48.2% growth versus April 2011). In particular, 318.3 thousand ArCa plastic cards or 29.1% of the total active ArCa cards were used (up 74%), 145.4 thousand Visa cards or 66% of total active Visa cards (up 33.6%), and 126.7 thousand MasterCard plastic cards or 68% of total active MasterCard cards (over 2fold growth). As of May 1 2012 the number of POS-terminals at the commerce/service and cash dispensing points (exclusive of ATMs) operating in the ArCa system totaled 5112 (up 32.4% versus April 2011), including 551 at cash dispensing points (12.6% growth) and 4498 at the commerce/service points (37.1% growth).
As of April 1 2011 there were 866 active ATMs in Armenia, which was 23.7% 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.