The number of bank cards issued last year in the countries of the post-Soviet space has grown significantly against the backdrop of withdrawal from Russia of Visa and Mastercard international payment systems. RBK reports, citing the statistics of the national banks of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.
According to it, the annual growth rate of bank cards in circulation in a number of CIS countries was significantly higher than in 2021, and in most cases set records for at least five years.
The Central Bank of Tajikistan registered the highest growth in the number of issued local cards and cards of international payment systems. The number of cards in circulation in this country increased by 45.5 percent over the year to 5 million.
The number of bank cards of all payment systems in Uzbekistan for 2022 increased by 26.2 percent to 34.2 million.
The number of cards of international payment systems in Kyrgyzstan increased by 37.4 percent over the nine months of last year to 1.8 million.
In Armenia, this figure increased by 18.7 percent to 2.1 million for three quarters. The number of bank cards of all payment systems in Azerbaijan increased by 18.3 percent to 13.6 million in 2022, and by 14.9 percent to 18 million in Belarus.
At the same time, growth rates in Kazakhstan and Georgia have been at their lowest in recent years. In Kazakhstan, the number of bank cards of international payment systems over the past year increased by only 8.35 percent, in Georgia — by 4.6 percent.
In March 2022, the international payment systems Visa and Mastercard announced suspension of work in Russia. All cards of these payment systems, already issued by Russian banks, continue to work on the territory of the Russian Federation as before, but they cannot be used for payments abroad.
