ArmInfo. Ardshinbank and Visa International Payment and Setllement System offer individual Visa cardholders to get exclusive rewards on non-cash transactions from June 15 to September 15. The press service of the bank told ArmInfo that rewards will go to those cardholders who will be the first to exceed the minimum threshold limits for non-cash transactions defined by the Bank.
According to the source, the monthly minimum number of non-cash transactions performed by Classic cards should not be less than 6, and the minimum monthly amount of non-cash transactions should not be less than 100 thousand drams; Premium class cards - a month with at least 10 transactions of at least 200 thousand drams. The amount of compensation for the first five customers of Classic class card holders will be 60 thousand drams, for the second five - 45 thousand drams, for the third five - 30 thousand drams. And for Premium class cardholders, the amount of compensation is as follows: for the first five - 200 thousand drams, for the second five - 100 thousand drams and for the third five - 70 thousand drams.
Within the framework of this campaign, utility payments made via Internet or ATMs, card to card transfers, inter-bank and intra-bank transfers to RA and non-RA banks are not considered as non-cash transactions.
Transactions are made in Armenian drams. Rewards are subject to taxation in the manner and amount established by the tax legislation of the Republic of Armenia. In accordance with the legislation of the Republic of Armenia, the bank as a tax agent pays taxes to cardholders, as well to the state budget of the Republic of Armenia.
According to the analytical review "Armenian banks in the card business", prepared by ArmInfo IC, Ardshinbank is in the TOP-5 by the total number of active cards - about 211 thousand as of April 1, 2019, while the second position is held by the number of Visa and MasterCard cards - over 147 thousand and about 58 thousand, respectively. On YOY basis, the bank increased the total number of cards by 18.1%. In terms of the volume of plastic transactions, Ardshinbank provided about 209 billion drams in 2018, keeping in TOP-5, with YOY increase in the absolute value of 41.2% per annum. By the number of ATMs and the volume of ATM transactions, the bank entrenched in the TOP-3 - 147 ATM, the volume for 2018 - over 188 billion drams (YOY growth of 35.8%). Ardshinbank was one of the first to issue ArCa-MIR cobaging cards. The bank, along with issuing and servicing local Ar‘a cards, issues and services international Visa and MasterCard cards. To note, Ardshinbank was founded in 2003. The majority shareholders of Ardshinbank as of April 1, 2019 are Arins Group LLC (this is renamed Business Investment Center LLC) with 67.97% share in the capital and REGION Industrial Finance Corporation CJSC - 29.52%. Ardshinbank assigned ratings of two international rating agencies (Moody's and Fitch), equal to the country rating of Armenia.