YEREVAN, June 5. /ARKA/. The spread of coronavirus and strict quarantine measures throughout the world are forcing people to change their habits. The pandemic has also indirectly influenced the behavior of people when making payments, purchases, and various transactions, the press service of the Union of Banks of Armenia says.
It cites official data for the first quarter of this year, according to which for the first time the number of non-cash transactions exceeded the number of cash transactions.
Thus, the number of cashless transactions in the first quarter of 2020 compared to the same period last year increased by 73.6%, and their volume by 53.4%. In the reporting period, the number of payment cards amounted to 460,333, which were used to make 18,154,229 transactions, by 33.8% more than in the first quarter of 2019.
Also, in the first quarter of this year, payment cards were used to make 592,174 million drams worth transactions, an increase of 22.9% or 110.4 million drams compared to the same time span of 2019.
The number and volume of non-cash transactions increased significantly. In particular, in the first quarter of this year, compared with the first three months of last year, cash transactions increased by 2.4%, while the number of non-cash transactions by 73.6%.
The volume of cash transactions in the reporting period compared to the 1st quarter of 2019 increased by 13.3%, while the volume of non-cash transactions increased by 36.3%.
It is also significant that in the first quarter of 2020, the share of non-cash retail transactions made by cards recorded the highest historical growth rate, reaching 55.9%, while in the first quarter of 2019 it was only 36.6%. -0-
