As of June 1, 2011, banks issued 8.9 million charge cards

/IRBIS, July 8, 2011/ - As of June 1, 2011 in Kazakhstan, second-tier banks issued 8.9 million payment cards, and the number of holders of cards made up - 8.1 million people, said today the National Bank of Kazakhstan. It is noted that in comparison with the situation on the same date in 2010 there was an increase of 10.5% and 7.3% respectively. The most common are debit cards, their share was 87.9%, the share of credit cards - 10.4%. The share of debit from a credit limit and prepaid cards is 1.7% and 0.1% respectively. In May 2011 the volume of transactions using payment cards by Kazakhstan issuers totaled 346.1 billion (increase compared to May 2010 amounted to 27.5%). The number of transactions for May 2011 totaled 13.1 million transactions and has increased in comparison with May 2010 of 13.0%. The increase in the number and amount of cashless payments was 18.9% (2.6 million transactions) and 34.3% (46.7 billion), operations and cash withdrawal 11.6% (10.5 million . transactions) and 26.5% (299.4 billion), respectively. According to the National Bank, the number of POS-terminals in the country on June 1, 2011 amounted to 26,449 against 23,303 on the same date last year, the number of ATMs in this period increased to 7,759 from 7,216, the number of trading companies, servicing payment cards reached 11,205 against 10,172 the year before. As of June 1, 2011 issue of credit cards actually perform 20 banks and JSC "Kazpost". These organizations produce and distribute payment cards of international systems (which account is 97.9%): VISA International, MasterCard Worldwide, American Express International, China Union Pay and Diners Club International. In addition, banks of Kazakhstan produce payment cards for local systems: Altyn Card - JSC "National Bank of Kazakhstan"; SmartAlemCard - JSC "BTA Bank" and the local card of Citybank Kazakhstan - JSC "Citybank Kazakhstan". [2011-07-08]