Yerevan /Mediamax/. In the first quarter, 2009, 1793463 operations with the use of plastic cards at the volume of 85bln AMD were realized in the territory of Armenia.

As Mediamax was informed in the press service of the Central Bank of Armenia, the volume of cashless payments by cards made 6.5bln AMD.

In the accounting period, the volume of cashless payments by cards made 7.7% of card operations. On the whole, the volume of card operations increased as compared to the analogous period of 2008 for 2bln AMD (44.8%).

The number of cards in circulation as of the end of he first quarter of 2009 made 483243, which exceeds the index of the fourth quarter, 2008, by 6.4% (28886 cards).

As of the end of the first quarter, 2009, the number of functioning ArCa (Armenian Card) cards increased as compared to the end of the fourth quarter, 2008, by 9.9% (for 19743 cards) and made 219933.
The number of cards of international systems in the accounting period increased by 3.6% (9143 cards).

The number of VISA cards increased by 2.7% (4461 cards) and made 170355, and the number of Master Cards increased by 4.6% (2181 cards) and made 49950.

In the accounting period, there were 783123 operations at the total sum of 31.5bln AMD realized with the use of ArCa cards. The volume of operations increased as compared to the same period in 2008 for 9.9bln AMD (or 46.1%).

The volume of operations, realized by VISA cards in the first quarter of 2009 made 30.9bln AMD (543711 operations), and by MasterCard cards – 13.4bln AMD (2255374 operations). As compared to the first quarter, 2008, these indices increased respectively for 6.1bln and 8bln AMD.

With the use of other international cards in the first quarter of 2009 there were 211255 operations realized at the sum of 9.4bln AMD, which is 1bln AMD more, as compared to the same period of 2008.

In the first quarter, 2009, with the use of one card, issued by Armenian banks, on average 1.2 operations were realized per month. The average volume of one operation made 46 thousand AMD.

As of the end of the first quarter, 2009, 21 banks dealt with provision and operation of plastic cards in Armenia. 19 of those banks are members of ArCa single payment system.