YEREVAN, March 1, /ARKA/. Armenian ArCa payment systems’ board has decided to grant Areximbank -Gazprombank Group a license for issuing local ArcA cards. According to an Areximbank -Gazprombank Group press release, the overall number of plastic cards issued by the bank will increase this year by eight-ten thousand. In 2011 February Areximbank -Gazprombank Group became a principled member of ArCa.

According to the press release, together with ArCa the bank plans to get down soon to solving technical aspects of the issue before starting issuing cards. The bank plans also to take active part in a retirement pension delivery program through plastic cards.

The number of plastic payment cards issued by the bank last year increased by almost 31% to a total of 75, 315 and the number of transactions by cards grew by 45.7%.

Areximbank-Gazprombank Group (formerly Areximbank) is a principled member of VISA International and MasterCard International payment systems. In 2007 it joined Armenian ArCa payment system. It was the first Armenia-based bank to introduce on-line order of plastic cards. The number of its ATMs has grown to 44 and that of POS-terminals to 128. The bank is owned fully by Russian Gazprombank.

Armenian Card processing company was established in 2000. Today 21 banks are its members, which issue ArCa Classic, ArCa Gold, ArCa Business, ArCa Affinity, ArCa Co-branded, ArCa Debit and ArCa Platinum cards. -0-