15 Mar 2018 16:03

Russians increase goods, services payments using plastic cards 30% in 2017 - Central Bank

MOSCOW. March 15 (Interfax) - Individuals used plastic cards to pay for goods and services worth 16.1 trillion rubles in 2017, up 30.3% from 12.3 trillion rubles in 2016, the Central Bank said on its website.

The number of card transactions increased to 17.9 billion, up 37.7% from 13.01 billion.

Bank cards were used to withdraw 25.7 trillion rubles in 2017, 0.8% less than the 25.9 trillion rubles withdrawn in 2016. The number of withdrawal operations declined 4.0% to 3.3 billion.

Card operations not connected with payment for goods and services (for example, transfers from one card to another and charitable contributions) totaled 2.7 billion last year, up 95.5%, worth 19.1 trillion rubles, up 77.5%. That is, the volume of such operations exceeded the volume of payment operations and the quantity of those operations was just 16.9% less than the number of bank withdrawals using the cards.

In all, individuals conducted 23.9 operations with cards in 2017, up 34.2%, worth 60.8 trillion rubles, up 24.2%.

The share of payment operations in all card operations by individuals came to 26.4%, up from 25.2% in 2016.

The number of cards issued to individuals rose to 271 million as of January 1, 2018, 6.1% more than a year earlier.

The number of debit cards increased 6.6% to 239.3 million and credit cards - up 5.1% to 31.7 million.

The number of active cards in the hands of individuals (those with which operations were conducted last year) rose 13.1% to 157.6 million.

Card issuance or acquiring was conducted by 395 banks as of January 1, 2018, out of 561 active banks.

Their networks consisted of 206,300 ATMs and about 2.39 million electronic terminals.