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.
