YEREVAN, August 5. /ARKA/. In the first half of 2021, the payment cards issued by Armenian banks were used to make 31,532,464 transactions, which was by 10,772,048 or 51.9% more than in the first half of 2020, the Union of Banks of Armenia said.

The volume of transactions amounted to 811.921 billion drams, which was by 179.068 billion drams or 28.3% more than in the same period of 2020.

In the reporting period, the number of cards issued by Armenian banks increased in comparison with the first half of 2020 by 131,110 or 5.4%, amounting to 2,576,937.

During the reporting period, 775,919 ArCa cards, 1,097,557 Visa cards, 656,208 MasterCard cards, 47,253 other international cards were issued.

Compared to the first half of 2020, in January-June 2021, ArCa cards were issued by 42,352 more (5.8%), Visa cards - by 47,715 (4.5%), MasterCard cards - by 37,507 (6.1%), other international cards – more by 3,536 (8.1%)

At the end of June 2021, there were 1,544 ATMs and 14,334 POS terminals in Armenia. The number of ATMs in comparison with the first half of 2021 did not change, while the number of POS-terminals increased by 1,972 or 15.9%

Of the 17 commercial banks operating in Armenia, 16 issue ArCa cards, 15 – MasterCard cards, 13 – Visa cards, one bank - Amex, Diners’ Club and JCB cards and two banks - other cards.

Overall, Armenia-based commercial banks earned a total of 40.7 billion drams in income in the first half of 2021, by 46.7 million or 0.11% more than in the same time span of 2020.

There are 17 commercial banks in Armenia which run as many as 541 branches across the country, employing 12,700 personnel. As of April 2021, the number of bank clients stood at 3.3 million people (an increase of 229,405 people or by 7.7% in comparison with April 2020), of which 3.2 million were individuals and 107,300 thousand legal entities. ($1 - 492.3 drams) -0-