ArmInfo. As of April 1, 2022, over 2.7mln plastic cards were effective in Armenia, with an extremely moderate increase - 3.5% in the corresponding period of 2021 to 7.5%, which is much lower than the 17.3% and 17.5% in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
Most of the cards are debt and charge cards - 64.4% and 31.9% respectively, with credit cards constituting 3.7%. Debit cards showed a 36.5% year-on-year increase, whereas the number charge and credit cards decreased by 14.8% and 57.3% respectively.
The share of Visa cards is 45.1% (over 1.2mln cards against 41.9% in the first quarter of 2021). These are followed by ArCa (27.6% or 754,400 against 31% in the first quarter of 2021), MasterCard (25.7% or 700,800 against 25.3% in the first quarter of 2021). The other cards are international cards (mostly HSBC cards, AmEx and Diners Club) - 43,700 (1.6% against 1.8% in the first quarter of 2021).
ArCa and other international cards showed a decrease, whereas Visa and MasterCard showed a higher-rate increase. Specifically, ArCa cards showed a 4.2% decrease against a 3.2% increase, with the other international cards showing a 3% decrease against a 1.4% increase. Visa cards showed an accelerated increase from 3% up to 15.3%, with MasterCard cards showing a moderate increase - 5.1% to 8.6%. The number of ArCa-MIR cards, over 8,000 now, has considerably slowed down its increase - from 83.2% last year down to 13.4%, with the quarterly increase of 18.3% against a 3.6% decrease. ArCa-MIR cards showed a 3.9% decrease in the third quarter of 2021 as well.
The share of microprocessor cards reached 57.7% (against 40.8% last year) or 1.6mln, with most of them being Visa cards (1.02mln) and MasterCard (543,400). The number of magnetic stripe cards was 804,600 (29.5% against 35.9% last year), most of them being local ArCa cards (745,200). The number of hybrid cards is 315,040 (11.5% against 22.1%), with most of them being Visa and MasterCard. The rest 36,900, 1.4% against 1.1% last year, are virtual Visa cards, which showed a much slower year-on-year increase - 29.6% against an 11-fold increase last year.
The number of debit cards is 1,759,000, that of charge cards is 870,874,000 and that of credit cards 101,142. The share of Visa cards is the total number of debit cards is 802,114, that of credit MasterCard cards is 56,025. As regards charge cards, the number of Visa cards was 392,234, followed by ArCa cards (253,611) and MasterCard (216,360).
The Central Bank of Armenia is the majority shareholder of ArCa, with the other principal shareholder being ACBA Bank, Armeconombank, and Ardshinbank. The rest 14 banks hold 2% each. HSBC Bank Armenia, VTB Bank Armenia, Unibank and INECOBANK are operating their own processing systems. Seventeen Armenian banks are operating plastic cards
