Tuesday, August 21 2012 18:21
Active bankcards in Armenia grew in number by 36.3% over year mostly due to MasterCards
ArmInfo. In July 2011 the Armenian banks issued a total of 29200 cards within Armenian Card (43% y-o-y growth). As of late July 2012, the number of active cards was 895 thsd against 656.5 thsd over July 2011 (36.3% y-o-y growth).
Armenian Card told ArmInfo that over July 2011 the banks issued 10077 ArCa local cards (9.8% y-o-y growth), 9687 MasterCards (57.4% y-o-y growth) and 9436 Visa cards (85.5% y-o-y growth).
The source says that over July 2012 operations were carried out with 624.6 thsd cards, or 70% of the total number of active cards (45.7% y-o-y growth), particularly, with 329.5 thsd ArCa cards (33.1% y-o-y growth), or 74% of active ArCa cards; 156.2 thsd Visa cards (38% y-o-y growth), or 65% of active Visa cards; and 138.9 thsd MasterCards (more than twofold y-o-y growth), or 67% of active MasterCards.
As of 1 August 2012 there were 5559 POS-terminals within Armenian Card (34.7% y- o-y growth) and 906 ATMs (19.7% y-o-y growth). All of them accept ArCa local cards. In the meantime, 819 of the total number of ATMs also accept MasterCards, 807 - Visa cards.
To note, the majority shareholder of ArCa is the Central Bank of Armenia. The other large stockholders are ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank, Armeconombank, Ardshininvestbank, and each of the rest of 14 commercial banks of Armenia own 2% of shares.