YEREVAN, December 22. /ARKA/. All types of plastic cards were used in Armenia in the third quarter of 2017 to make a total of 399.9 billion drams worth transactions, by 8.7% more than in the same time span of 2016, the Central Bank reported today. It also said that the number of transactions grew by 13% year-on-year to over 8.9 million.

Local ArCa cards were used to make a total of 2,023,157 transactions worth 89.1 billion drams, a 6.8% decline from the year before. International VISA plastic cards were used to make 4,093,438 transactions worth 191.3 billion drams. Compared with the third quarter of 2016 the amount was up by 8.1%, according to the Central Bank.

Also international MasterCard plastic cards were used to make 2 663 437 transactions worth 114 billion drams, a year-on-year increase of 25я1%. The amount of transactions made by using other international plastic was said to have grown by 34.1% from the year before to 5.3 billion drams (131 404 transactions).

According to the Central Bank, at the end of quarter 3, 2017, the total number of cards in circulation stood at 1,635,254 (a decline of 7.6%). Of them 535,765 were ArCa cards (up 0.5%), 583,498 were VISA cards (a drop of 25.3%), 471,260 were MasterCard cards (15% growth) and 44,731 were other cards (a drop of 2.9%). ($ 1 – 481.18 drams). 0-