The expansion of payment infrastructure and the rising popularity of innovative payment methods are contributing to the stable increase in popularity of contactless card payments in Ukraine.
In H1 2019, the total number of transactions (cashless payments and cash withdrawals) involving payments cards issued by Ukrainian banks was 2.352 billion, with the volume of these transactions totaling UAH 1.667 trillion. These figures were up by 28% each compared to H1 2018.
The number of cashless transactions was 1.9181 billion, while their volume totaled UAH 823.2 billion. This means that currently eight out of ten transactions involving payment cards are cashless.
Since the start of 2019, the share of cashless payments has increased by 4.3%, to 49.4%, compared to 49.6% and 49.2% in Q1 and Q2 2019 respectively.
In H1 2019, POS transactions, at 51%, accounted for the largest share of transactions involving payment cards. Card-to-card transfers dominate in terms of the volume of cashless payments – at 40.5%.
As of 1 July 2019, the total number of payment cards in Ukraine was 63.2 million units, of which over 60% were active payment cards – an increase of 6% compared to the start of 2019.
There is an ongoing upward trend in the number of cashless payments, including payments made using smartphones or other NFC devices. These payments are popular because they are secure, rapid and convenient.
More specifically, cashless transactions involving cashless cards and payment tokens account for almost a third of the total number and volume of cashless transactions made through payment terminals (30% and 29% respectively). The number of such cards also continues to grow. Since the start of the current year, the number of contactless payment cards has risen by over one third (by 36%), to 5.5 million units, while that of payment tokens has grown by almost one fourth (by 24%), to 1.4 million units. This means that one in seven payment cards in Ukraine is contactless.
The popularity of contactless payments is contributing to an expansion of the contactless payment infrastructure. Since the start of 2019, the network of contactless POS terminals has expanded by 18.7%, to 262,800 units. At present, 86% of POS terminals in Ukraine have the contactless payment capability (up from 79.4% as of 1 January 2019).
As of 1 July 2019, the ratio of the total number of POS terminals (both contact and contactless) to the Ukrainian resident population was 8,000 units per 1,000,000 people. However, the POS network remains unevenly distributed across Ukraine. Payment cards and payment devices are mostly concentrated in the city of Kyiv, and in Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv oblasts. Meanwhile, western regions and Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts have the smallest number of payment devices.
The total number of self-service bank machines (ATMs and self-service kiosks) has remained almost unchanged.
For reference: as of 1 July 2019, there were 71 participants in card payment systems operating in Ukraine.