The popularity of payment cards in Ukraine continues to grow wildly

The popularity of payment cards in Ukraine continues to grow wildly, say experts. According to the National Bank of Ukraine, each adult citizen has an average of three payment cards, which exceeds 115 million.

Anna Dovgalska, deputy chairman of the board of GLOBUS bank, emphasized that the growth in the number of payment cards is observed in all segments, in particular cards for spending transactions. During 2023, their number increased by 12.5% to more than 52 million.

Contactless cards are also gaining popularity: their number increased by 17% to 30.6 million pieces. This is almost 59% of all active cards. Tokenized payment cards that use NFC technology are becoming increasingly popular, exceeding 12.4 million.

Ukrainian retail chains are actively implementing cashless operations, in particular contactless payment and NFC technology. The percentage of such transactions is almost 90% of the total number and amounts of non-cash transactions.

The international payment systems MasterCard and Visa remain the leaders in the volume of transactions with Ukrainian cards. In 2023, they processed almost all transactions - 99.9% of the number of transactions and 99.5% of the amount.

According to Dovgalska, the demand for payment cards will continue to grow in 2024. She predicts that the total number of cards may increase by 5-7%, up to 120-123 million pieces.