Mastercard slightly increases lead over Visa in terms of cards issued in Ukraine in 2023 - National Bank of Ukraine

MOSCOW. March 7 (Interfax) - The Mastercard payment system operator increased its share in the Ukrainian bankcard market to 54.4% in 2023, versus 53.9% in 2022, while the share of its main competitor, Visa, decreased from 45.6% to 45.2%, Ukrainian media said, citing the National Bank of Ukraine.

According to the bank, the total number of issued Mastercard cards increased from 59.2 million to 62.6 million in 2023, alongside an increase in the issuance of Visa cards from 50.0 million to 52.0 million.

Over the past few years, Visa has been closing the gap with its competitor, in particular, from 30.5% in 2020 to 14.5% in 2021 and 8.4% in 2022, yet the gap stood at 9.2% at the end of 2023.

Visa recently appointed Kristina Dorosh its senior vice president, regional manager in 17 countries, including Ukraine. Dorosh succeeds Vera Platonova in this position, while the latter was promoted to global Chief Revenue Officer for Money Movement Solutions and head of regional departments for Visa Direct regional sales and solution development, cross-border solutions (VXBS) and B2B Connect.

Dorosh will be responsible for operations and defining Visa's strategy in Southeast Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Ukraine and Moldova. She has been with the Visa team since 2016, starting her career as the head of the regional product division, responsible for key card products, loyalty platform development, digital solutions and push payments.

According to the company press release, she served as Visa regional manager in Georgia and Armenia in 2019-2021, before heading company business in Central Asia and Azerbaijan.