YEREVAN, December 14. / ARKA /. In the 3rd quarter of 2012 all types of plastic cards were used in Armenia to make 4.9 million transactions worth 263 billion drams, the Central Bank of Armenia said.

According to it, cashless transactions amounted to 23.1 billion drams, a 38 percent increase when compared to third quarter of 2011, or 9% of all transactions made by use of plastic cards.
The total number of circulated cards stood at 1.2 million, having grown by 6 percent or 70,000 pieces from the second quarter of 2012.

The amount of transactions made through Internet rose to 5 billion drams, including 1.1 billion drams worth e-trade. The amount of card-to-card transfers rose to 4 billion drams.

ArCa cards were used in the third quarter of 2012 to make 1,745,716 transactions worth 72.7 billion drams. The amount of transactions grew year-on-year by 16% or 9.9 billion drams and the number of transactions rose by 13 percent or 200,000.

VISA cards were used to make 2,042,084 transactions worth 128.5 billion drams, a 66% rise (51.2 billion drams) year-on-year.

MasterCards were used in the third quarter of 2012 to make 874,553 transactions worth 43.6 billion drams, a 46% increase over the same time span in 2011. Other plastic cards were used to make 271,557 transactions worth 18.2 billion drams,  a 0.7 billion drams rise from a year before.

According to the Central Bank, the number of active ArCa cards in the third quarter of 2012 increased by 4% or 18,000 to  454,000. The number of international cards grew by 7% (52,000), including VISA cards by  9%  (41,000) and  MasterCards by а 4% (9,000). ($1 – 405.89 drams). -0-