The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) enhances transparency of information on payment market trends. From now on, the central bank will quarterly publish an extended list of statistical data describing the payment card market in Ukraine, according to NBU Board Decision No. 526-D dated 19 August 2018.
Payment card market indicators will be published in more detail and will comprise the data as follows:
- payment systems (MasterCard, Visa, PROSTIR, others)
- client features (legal entities and individuals)
- network for executing transactions (bank proprietary network (On-Us domestic transactions), network of other resident banks (Off-Us domestic transactions) and network of non-resident banks (cross border transactions)).
Data on the number of POS terminals with the option of contactless payment and e-commerce stores will be published too.
“Expanding publicly available data will allow detailed analysis of the payment market, development trends, and enhance transparency of the market activity,” according to , Director of Payment Systems and Innovative Development Department of the National Bank of Ukraine.
In H1 2018, the payment card market in general showed steady growth of number and volumes of cashless transactions by cards of the Ukrainian banks.
Share of cashless transactions increased to 44.1%. If compared to H1 2017, this is a 5.8 pp increase (38.3%).
Following the results of H1 2018, the total number of transactions with payment cards issued by Ukrainian banks amounted to 1,835.0 million with the volume of transactions totaling almost UAH 1,298.5 billion. These figures are up by 28.2% and 41.0% respectively in comparison to the H1 2017.
In addition, the number of the cashless transactions accounted for 1,423.3 million and the volume amounted to UAH 572.5 billion.
In H2 2018, the number of cashless transactions increased to 11.6% qoq and made up 750.6 million, where:
- 503.8 million transactions were executed by MasterCard cards,
- 246.2 million transactions - Visa cards,
- 0.6 million transactions – PROSTIR cards.
Amount of such transactions increased by 10.0% to UAH 299.9 billion, including:
- UAH 202.8 billion made through MasterCard cards,
- UAH 96.9 billion – Visa cards,
- UAH 0.2 billion – PROSTIR cards.
The volume of cashless transactions in H1 2018 were as follows:
- online transactions – 36.4% (average check was UAH 380)
- card-to-card transfers – 31.1% (average check – UAH 1,583)
- retail payments – 29.9% (average check – UAH 233)
- self-service payment devices – 2.6% (average check – UAH 557).
Most of cashless transactions by payment cards (51.7%) were retail payments.
As of 1 July 2018, the total number of payment cards in Ukraine did not change compared to the beginning of 2018 and accounted for 60.1 million cards, whereof almost 35.3 million cards were active (58.7%).
The number of active cards of the MasterCard payment system made up 21.4 million cards, Visa - 10.7 million and PROSTIR - 0.4 million. Along with this, the number of card holders was 42.3 million people, which made up 1.4 payment card per one person.
At the same time, the National Bank of Ukraine observes an upward trend in the number of contactless cards. Hence, as of 1 July 2018, the number of cards made up 3.1 million, which is by 12% more than at the beginning of the year.
The infrastructure for cashless transactions grew steadily as well. In particular, the number of merchants offering customers the option to make cashless payments via payment cards rose by 14.0 thousand (by 8.0%) and made up 187.7 thousand in H1 2018.
Thus, in H1 2018, the network of terminals expanded to 270.5 thousand pieces (by 7.5%). This was mainly attributed to an increase in the number of retail POS terminals: as of 1 July 2018, terminals accounted for 251.5 million pieces, which is by 8% greater than at the beginning of the year. The same time, 190.2 thousand pieces or 75.7% of the retail POS terminals provide the option to pay using contactless cards. On the contrary, the number of the bank terminals decreased by 2.9% and made up 19.0 thousand pieces.
As of 1 July 2018, the ratio of POS terminals to the Ukrainian population was 6.4 pieces per 1 thousand population. In Kyiv, the number of POS terminals was 17.1 pieces per 1 thousand population. The leaders in Ukrainian oblasts, where the average number of payment terminals per 1 thousand population are Dnipropetrovsk (with 8.7 pieces per 1 thousand population), Kyiv (8.3 pieces per 1 thousand population), and Odesa (7.5 pieces per 1 thousand population) oblasts. The poorest results are seen in Luhansk (1.6 pieces per 1 thousand population) and Donetsk (2.7 pieces per 1 thousand population) oblasts.
The total number of ATMs in Ukraine remained unchanged and made up 18,500.
Indicators of the Ukrainian payment cards market with a breakdown by oblasts and banks follow the same pattern:
As of 1 July 2018, 77 members of payment cards systems operated in Ukraine.
