YEREVAN, June 3. / ARKA /. The Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) said some 145.7 billion drams worth transactions (about 2.9 million transactions) were made in the first three months of 2011 by using plastic cards, by 39 billion drams more from the same time span of 2010, while the number of transactions increased by 26% or 592,166.

According to CBA figures, the amount of cashless operations grew by 7.9% year-on-year to 11.6 billion drams, 7.9% of all card-made transactions. The volume of transactions made via Internet was 2.4 billion drams including 0.5 billion drams worth e-trading.

The CBA said also 48 billion drams worth transactions (1,227,235 transactions) were made by using ArCa cards, by 9.5% or 4 billion drams more if compared to the same period of time in 2010 while the number of transactions increased by 8.8% or 99,060. The volume of transactions made by using VISA plastic cards rose by 54% (21 billion drams) year-on-year to 60 billion drams (955,134 transactions). The volume of transactions made by using

MasterCard surged by 46% or 6.8 billion drams to 21.5 billion drams (453,269 transactions). The volume of transactions made by using other cards grew by 7 billion drams (258,189 transactions) to 16 billion drams.

The CBA said also the number of  ArCa cards grew by 4% to 318,216, while the number of international plastic cards grew by 8.5% (by 35,892 cards). Particularly, the number of VISA cards rose by 10% (by 27,096) to 296,865 cards. The number of MasterCard grew by 9% (10,842) to 126,785 and the number of other international plastic cards contracted by 5% (2,046). Of 21 commercial banks in Armenia providing and servicing plastic cards 19 were members of single ArCa payment system ($1 – 375,97 drams). -0-