Positive trends on the payment card market were secured in 2017.
Analysis of the payment card market and the payment infrastructure in 2017 shows that the share of cashless card settlements in Ukraine increased to 39.3% (by 3.8% since the beginning of 2017). In general, in the last five years this indicator rose enormously with more than a three-fold increase (from 12.4% as of 1 January 2013).
Overall in 2017, Ukrainians transacted over 3 billion operations using payment cards issued by Ukrainian banks for the amount of UAH 2,125 billion (23.0% and 31.9% increases yoy respectively).
Sustainable upward trend is noted in cashless payments, i.e. in 2017 such operations increased by 30.2%, and payment amounts by 46.2% (yoy).
The previous year demonstrated the following distribution of cashless card operations:
- Internet accounts for the largest value of cashless operations - 38.8%;
- The biggest number of operations was transacted in retail stores - 50.6%.
Number of payment cards over the year increased by 3.9% and at the beginning of 2018 was 59.9 million, whereof active cards accounted for 34.9 million (a 7.6% increase). An active growth is also observed in the contactless payment cards segment by 37.8% over the year (from 2 million to 2.7 million cards).
2017 was likewise noted for major development of the payment infrastructure.
The number of trade and service businesses that offer customers the option to make cashless payments rose by 27.8 thousand (by 19.1% yoy), and made up 173.8 thousand companies.
The POS network over the year expanded by 15% and as of 1 January 2018 accounted for 251.7 thousand (a 32.4 thousand increase over 1 January 2017), furthermore there is a downward trend of bank POS terminals and an increase in POS terminals in retail stores. The mean number of ATMs over the year remained unchanged.
Respectively the ratio of POS terminals to the Ukrainian population at the end of 2017 was 6 thousand per 1 million.
For reference: As of 1 January 2018, 77 banks operating in Ukraine are card payment system members.