YEREVAN, May 26. /ARKA/. Cashless transactions made by using plastic cards increased by 22.9% in Armenia in the first quarter of 2020 to 592 billion drams, the Executive Director of the Union of Banks of Armenia Seyran Sargsyan told reporters during an online press conference today.

He said banking cards of almost all payment and settlement systems are serviced in Armenia - including the national ArCa system,  Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Diners Club and Japanese JCB.

According to him, the number of active payment cards in the first quarter of 2020 stood at 2,460,333, which is 2.9% or 70 thousand cards more than in 2019.

He said payment cards were used in the first quarter to make 18,154,229 transactions, which is 33.8% more than in the first quarter of 2019.

"For the first time in Armenia, the number of non-cash transactions exceeded the number of cash transactions (57% to 43%), which is encouraging,' he said.

In the first quarter of 2020 the number of cash transactions made by using banking  cards amounted to 7,784,894, which is 2.4% more  than in the first quarter of 2019, while the number of non-cash transactions increased  by 73.4% when compared to the first quarter of 2019 to 10,369, 335.

As for the volume of transactions made by cards, according to him, cash transactions still account for about 70% and only 30% are non-cash transactions.

“But there are interesting developments. The volume of cash transactions in the first quarter of 2020 amounted to 415.6 billion drams, which is by 13.3% more  than  in the first quarter of 2019, while  the volume of non-cash transactions surged by 53.4% to  176.9 billion drams,' Sargsyan said.

He noted also that 43% of all transactions were made through ATMs, an increase of 13.3%, 24% through POS terminals (an increase of 64.4%), and 33% through the Internet (an increase of 80.3%). In terms of volume - ATM transactions rose by 18.6%, Internet transactions - by 73% and POS-terminal transactions - by 22%.

The average ATM transaction size dropped a little to 51,000 drams, while the amount of transactions in outlets was 20,498 drams.

"This suggests that customers began to use cards more often as a means of payment, including for small purchases, which led to a decrease in the average transaction volume," Sargsyan said.

The number of ATMs in the first quarter of 2020 grew to 1,544, and the number of outlets that accept bank cards grew to 11,600 ($1 - 483.82 drams). -0-