ArmInfo.As of January 1, 2024, the total number of cards in the Armenian plastic market reached more than 3.722 million cards, with a y-o-y growth of 17%. At the same time, micro- processing cards with an NFC chip have increased 3-fold over three years, including by 24% in 2023 (versus 45% in 2022), amounting to 2.6 million cards, with their dominance growing in the total number of cards to almost 70%, by data from the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia.
Among micro-processing cards with an NFC chip, Visa has the largest share - 59.2% or 1.534 million, Mastercard accounts for 31.7% or 820.1 thousand, other international cards - 8.7% or 226.3 thousand cards, and local ArCa accounts for the remaining 0.4% or 8.7 thousand cards. Notably, among micro-processing cards, it was local ArCa that this time showed impressive y-o-y growth - 6.7-fold, against the background of which Visa cards, the leader in terms of number, increased moderately - by 16.6%, Meanwhile, at an increasing rate, it was surpassed not only by Mastercard - 27.3%, but also by other foreign cards, including HSBC, AmEx, Diners Club, MIR) - 43%
High double-digit growth is also recorded for virtual cards - by 32.6% year-on-year to 133,082 thousand (3.6% of the total number of cards). And if until mid-2022 there were only Visa virtual cards, then from Q3 there were also virtual Mastercard cards.
This y-o-y growth of virtual cards was largely supported by a noticeable increase in Mastercard cards - 5.6- fold, with Visa cards growing by 30.4%, however, Visa cards remain dominant: 130,161 thousand. In parallel, cards with magnetic tape, the number of which decreased by 31% until mid-2022, began to gradually increase from month to month after July 1 last year, when the updated law on non-cash payments came into force, obliging payments to be made exclusively by non-cash means. But their current number of 867,744 thousand, as a result of slowing 12.7% y-o-y growth, has moved more noticeably away from the previous milestone of more than a million cards, which is fully explained by their accelerated replacement with micro-processing ones. As a result, the share of cards with magnetic tape in the total number decreased from 42% to 23% in 2020-2023.
Moreover, notably, the y-o-y growth of these cards with magnetic tape was ensured by local ArCa cards, which, taking into account their affordability, were mainly provided to pensioners to receive pensions and make non-cash payments. In particular, there are now 841.568 thousand ArCa cards with magnetic tape and their number increased by 14.5% over the year. The share of hybrid cards has already decreased to 3.6% of the total number, amounting to 132.268 thousand with a y-o-y decline of 31.6%, which was due to an 2- fold impressive reduction in the dominant Visa and Mastercard cards, with an increase in local ArCa cards by 48%. Meanwhile 0.5% of the total number of cards or 20,243 thousand are co-branded ArCa-MIR cards, the growth of which slowed down year-on-year from 81% to 65.4%. But nevertheless, over the past two years their number has tripled. Let us remind you that in 2022, starting from March, the number of these cards began to increase sharply, accelerating monthly due to the high demand from immigrants arriving in Armenia, mainly from Russia. But a year later, the excitement subsided and the pace returned to the normal growth trajectory.
The driving force behind the annual increase in the total number of cards continues to be Visa cards, the volume of which increased by 14% over the year and amounted to 1.723 million units, which allowed maintaining dominance at 46.3%.
The driver of the y-o-y growth in the total number of cards continues to be Visa cards, the volume of which increased by 14% over the year and amounted to 1.723 million, which allowed maintaining dominance at 46.3%. Mastercard cards increased year-on-year by 19.1% to 878,001 thousand, the share of which in the total number of cards increased slightly from 23.2% to 23.6%. At the same time, local ArCa cards, having improved their dynamics coming out from the recession by 16.1% growth, reached 871.809 thousand cards, coming very close to Mastercards both in quantity and in share coverage of 23.4%. However, other foreign cards (including HSBC cards, AmEx, Diners Club, MIR) provided much higher y-o-y growth than Visa and Mastercard - by 35.3% to 248.824 thousand, even more increasing their share in the total umber of cards from 5.8% to 6.7%.
Debit cards continue to dominate the total number of cards - 65.7% or 2.445 million, followed by payment cards - 32.6% or 1.212 million, against which the share of credit cards has already decreased to 1.8% or 65.184 thousand. Moreover, the number of debit and payment cards continues to grow - by 18.9% and 14.1% per annum, respectively. As for credit cards, their number, after a significant halving in 2022, began to increase again from mid-2023 alone, and so weakly that the y-o-y growth was a meager 1.5%. And if previously Visa held the lead only in debit and payment cards, and Mastercard was in the lead in credit cards, then from Q4 2022, Visa replaced Mastercard as the leading credit card. As a result, as of January 1, 2024, the number of Visa debit cards has already reached 1.1 million 616 thousand, and the number of Visa payment and credit Visa cards has reached more than 40 thousand cards.
In mid-November 2023, two Armenian banks, Acba Bank and Converse Bank, were granted permission by the RA Central Bank to participate in the UnionPay International (UPI) foreign settlement and payment system. However, notably, Acba Bank has been servicing cards of this system since October 2019.
