National payment system Armenian Card launches the ArCa Pay system

ArmInfo. The national payment system Armenian Card has announced the introduction of another innovative product, ArCa Pay. According to the company's statement, ArCa Pay is a simple, fast, easy and safe platform for making instant transfers between clients of Armenian banks and payment settlement organizations.

It is reported that Ameriabank, Evocabank and Converse Bank have already  joined the system. From now on, customers of these banks can transfer  money instantly to each other using their banking applications,  specifying only the recipient's phone number.

Clients of banks connected to ArCa Pay choose the main financial  institution for receiving money through the ArCa Pay system  in their  banking application. In this case, the transfer can be received on a  current, card or settlement account. It was also noted that instant  transfers of funds through the ArCa Pay system will be provided to  banks and settlement organizations at significantly lower rates than  card-to-card transfers, which will also result in a lower rate for  the final consumer. In the near future, almost all banks and  settlement organizations of Armenia will start working with the ArCa  Pay system.

 Note that the development of the bank  card market in Armenia began  in March 2000 with the establishment of the National Unified Payment  System (UPS) Armenian Card (ArCa). The "Armenian Card" CJSC became a  principal member of the international payment system MasterCard  Worldwide (then known as Europay International). Since 2001, Armenian  Card has served as a processing center, offering services such as  issuing and acquiring MasterCard Worldwide cards, acquiring Visa Int.  cards and holding the status of Member Service Provider (MasterCard)  and Third Party Processor (Visa Int.). In 2010, the Armenian Card EPS  began operating as a processing center for the American Express  international payment system (Third Party Processor).

On January 18, 2022, thanks to the effective joint work of Armenian  Card and Armenian banks, the Apple Pay payment service was launched  for contactless payments with Visa and MasterCard cards.  Additionally, starting in mid-November 2022, the Google Pay payment  service for contactless payments with Visa and MasterCard cards was  also introduced. In 2022, work also began on launching a new fast  transfer/payment service for transferring funds between accounts with  immediate crediting, directly from mobile applications, using simple  identifiers.  Armenian Card started working on ArCa Pay in 2023 as a  significant program for the development and implementation of an  instant express payment system.  According to the Central Bank of  Armenia, as of July 1, Armenian banks had issued a total of 3.96  million payment cards.