YEREVAN, March 22. / ARKA /. Some 5.5 million transactions were made in the fourth quarter of 2012 in Armenia by plastic cards worth 323.3 billion drams, which was 45% more than in the same period in 2011, according to the Bulletin of the Central Bank of Armenia for the fourth quarter of 2012.

The amount of non-cash transactions was about 28.4 billion drams, by 39% more form a year before. Non-cash transactions made 9% of the total amount of transactions made by plastic cards. Of non-cash transactions some 4.6 billion drams were made via Internet, including 1.2 billion dram worth e-commerce, while card-to-card transfers amounted to 3.5 billion drams.

Local ArCa cards were used in the fourth quarter of 2012 to make 1,941,016 transactions worth 87.2 billion drams, by 12% or 9.4 billion drams more from a year before, while the number of transactions increased by 134,000 or 7%.

International VISA cards were used to make 2,121,821 transactions worth 138.9 billion drams, by 53% or 48.4 billion drams more than in the last quarter of 2011. International MasterCards were used to make 1,042,524 transactions worth 62.7 billion drams, by 73%, or 26.5 billion drams more from a year earlier.

Other international plastic cards were used to make 360,288 transactions worth 34.4 billion drams, by 85% or 15.8 billion drams more than in the fourth quarter of 2011.

At the end of the fourth quarter last year there were 1.3 million cards in circulation, an increase of 10 percent compared to the third quarter of 2012. According to the Central Bank, the number of ArcA cards increased by 8% to 492,000. The number of international cards used in Armenia increased by 11% to 831 thousand - VISA cards increased by 9% 521 thousand and MasterCard cards by 17% to 265 thousand.

At the end of the fourth quarter last year, 19 of 21 local banks issued and serviced plastic cards. They all are members of the single payment system ArCa. ($ 1 - 417.95 drams). -0-