Last year, the number of plastic cards in Armenia increased by 18.5 %
“Russia’s deterioration of the local economy will inevitably affect the labor income of Armenians living there, and respectively, in the volume of dividends from Russia. Especially since the lion’s share of private remittances is coming from Russia to Armenia,” such concern was expressed by the Union of Banks of Armenia (UBA), which has published its findings. According to the same source, the remittances of Armenian overseas “guest workers” are very important for closing the huge negative balance of foreign trade balance, as well as stimulating consumer demand and generally “maintaining” the country’s economy. Pursuant to the data presented by UBA, in 2012, the remittances of natural persons through the banking system had crossed the threshold of $ 2 billion, whereas according to last year’s results, it reached nearly $ 2.3 billion, of which more than $ 1.7 billion was from Russia. Compared to the previous year, the growth was 2.6%, and 5% only from Russia. For comparison, last year, by this indicator, the remittances by natural persons from the U.S. after Russia amounted to “only” $ 152 million. The transfers from Ukraine amounted to $ 18 million and $ 26 million from Kazakhstan. As for the transfers in the opposite direction, i.e. from Armenia to overseas, here, according to UBA, fall trends are observed. Thus, according to 2013 findings, the total volume of remittances to overseas has decreased by 1.7% amounting to $ 847 million, while only to Russia – 6.3% amounting to $ 235 million. UBA has noticed that the beginning of this year has not caused any problems to Armenia. On January, 2014, so to speak, is not the most generous month for immigrants to work. Through the banking system, by the name of natural persons, for non-commercial purposes, more than $ 99.6 million was received, which is still 19.6% more that the respective indicator for the last year. Union of Banks of Armenia has also found out that our citizens that traditionally were preferring the “cache”, in other words, the real money in the pockets, are gradually giving up with these stereotypes, by giving the preference to the plastic cards. Such data was released by the Union of Banks of Armenia. According to figures published by the Union, the number of payment cards in Armenia in the last 7 years has increased by 209 thousand, exceeding the threshold of 1.5 million. Only in last year, the number of plastic cards in Armenia increased by 18.5 %, and Visa showed the biggest growth dynamics (25.2 %) and ArCa (17.7 %). According to the same source, the total number of all types of card transactions has reached 20.5 million as of 2013 from 3 million as of end of 2006. In the last 7 years, the number of customers of commercial banks in Armenia increased by 763 thousand, reaching almost 1.9 million by the results of 2013. Just in the last year, the number of bank customers has increased by 285.5 thousand (or 17.6 %), including natural persons – 281.8 thousand (or 18.2 %), legal persons – 3.7 thousand (or 5.1 %).
Nelly BABAYAN
