8.7 million bank cards issued in Kazakhstan as of April 1, 2011

As of April 1, 2011, a total of 8.7 million bank cards have been issued in Kazakhstan, 11.2% up as compared to April 1, 2010, the National Bank of Kazakhstan reports .The number of individual bank card holders made up 8 million people (8.5% up).The share of debit cards is 89%, the share of credit cards is 8.4%, with debit cards with overdraft facility standing at 2.5% and pre-paid cards at 0.1%.Cards-involving transactions in March 2011 totaled $2.3 billion, 30.9% up against the like month of 2010, Interfax – Kazakhstan reports.The most of cashless payments were made by POS-terminals (43.6% and 74.9% by the number of volumes of cashless payments respectively) and ATMs (46.3% and 17.2% by the number of volumes of cashless payments respectively). As of April 1, cards are issued by 20 banking institutions and KazPost. These institutions issue cards belonging to international payment systems - VISA International, MasterCard Worldwide, American Express International, China Union Pay and Diners Club International. Besides, Kazakhstan’s banks issue local cards - Altyn Card (Halyk Bank), SmartAlemCard (BTA) and Citibank Kazakhstan (Citibank).