Banking Shake-up: Armenia to introduce new tax legislation amid fee  caps

ArmInfo.  New legislation on the taxation of the banking system will be developed in the near future, as stated by Babken Tunyan, deputy head of the Parliamentary  Committee on Economic Affairs and member of the ruling "Civil  Contract" faction, to reporters  on February 5, while addressing the  Central Bank's recent changes to non-cash payment commission limits.

During a press conference the previous day,  Central Bank Governor  Martin Galstyan announced the Central Bank's decision to cap  commissions on retail trade payments starting March 1. The  decision  was made in response to numerous complaints by businesses regarding  fees as high as 2-4% for non-cash transactions. "Starting March 1,  the maximum rates will be 0.5% for the national ArCa payment system  cards and 0.9% for international cards," Galstyan said, clarifying  that the international payment systems Visa and Mastercard apply  their own fees. According to him, the Central Bank took this step  even though banks will suffer losses of approximately 2 billion  drams, or approximately $5 million, as a result.

"I believe  the banking system's high profits from the past and  previous years will  cover these losses. They are not obligated to do  this, but we are grateful for their partnership,"  Babken Tunyan  said. Regarding criticisms that banking services for businesses and  individuals are unreasonably overpriced, Tunyan noted that while  opinions vary, the government relies on market principles. "We  proceed from the presumption that there are a large number of banks  in Armenia and sufficient competition; if tariffs were unreasonably  high, they would have decreased as a result of that competition," the  parliamentarian concluded.

It should be noted that according to the analytical review "Armenian  Banks in the Card Business" (Issue #32), prepared by the ArmInfo  Investment Company, by October 1, 2025, there will be over 4.7  million cards in Armenia (with an annual growth rate of 9.1%):  770,300- ArCa cards, over 2.5 million- Visa cards, -1.1 million   Mastercard cards, 148,200- AmEx cards, and 206,100 -other foreign  cards (primarily MIR cards, and a small number of recently launched  UPI cards). The total volume of plastic transactions for the first  nine months of 2025 exceeds 5.5 trillion drams (including  transactions abroad), with non-cash transactions already dominating  the structure, accounting for 57%, or 3.2 trillion drams. Moreover,  the share of online transactions among non-cash transactions is  almost 48%,  including transactions abroad, it exceeds 70%.