ArmInfo. By July 2026, the Armenian plastic card market will already have 5.5 million cards, with annual growth accelerating from 15.1% to 20.2%. These are primarily microprocessor cards with NFC chips - 4.8 million, or 87% of the total number (versus 83.5% a year ago), with annual growth remaining at 29%. According to data from the Central Bank of Armenia, local Arca microprocessor cards with NFC chips have seen significant annual growth.
Visa accounts for the largest share of NFC-enabled microprocessor cards, accounting for 51% or over 2.4 million units. Mastercard accounts for 23% or over 1.1 million units. Local Arca accounts for 18% or nearly 858,000 units. Other international cards account for the remaining 8% or 374,300 units. It's worth noting that Arca microprocessor cards have demonstrated impressive growth for the third year in a row, with annual growth rates accelerating from 2.4 to 2.6 times. This is due to their chip integration and the use of the ArcaPay and ArcaQR systems, both launched in 2024-2025. Meanwhile, the growth of leading microprocessor cards, Visa, slowed from 28% to 17%. Despite this, it managed to outpace the rising growth rates of not only Mastercard, whose growth accelerated from 10% to 15%, but also other international cards (AmEx, Diners Club, MIR, UPI), which significantly stalled in growth from 38% to 10%.
A slowdown in growth was recorded for virtual cards, from 59% to 38%, with the number of cards exceeding 524,800 (with their share of the total number of cards increasing from 8.4% to 9.6%). While until mid-2022, these were exclusively Visa cards, Mastercard also appeared in the third quarter. Moreover, virtual Mastercards continued to grow impressively, albeit at a slower annual rate from 3x to 97.4%. While virtual Visa cards experienced a significant decline in growth, from 52x to 33%, Visa nevertheless retains the dominant position at 459,400 units.
At the same time, starting in 2024, the number of magnetic stripe cards began to decline quarterly, reaching 168,100 units by July 2026 (a 62.2% annual decline). These are almost entirely local Arca cards, with Mastercard and other foreign cards remaining in small numbers. Visa has discontinued issuing such cards since 2025. After July 1, 2022, when the updated law on cashless payments came into force, mandating payments exclusively by cashless means, local magnetic stripe cards began to be gradually replaced by chip cards, while Visa, Mastercard, and other foreign cards were "transformed" into microprocessor cards with NFC chips much earlier. As a result, the share of magnetic stripe cards in the total number of cards decreased from 42% to 3% between 2020 and 2026, while microprocessor cards with NFC chips, conversely, increased significantly from 17% to 87%.
The share of hybrid cards has already fallen to 0.3% of the total number, amounting to 17,600 units, a year- on-year decline of 11%, driven by both the decline of the dominant Visa and Mastercard brands, as well as a significant reduction in the number of local Arca cards. The driver of the annual growth in the total number of cards was local Arca cards, whose dynamics accelerated from a 10% decline to a double-digit 30.4% growth, with the number of cards exceeding 1 million, which increased their share over the year from 17.4% to 19%. At the same time, Mastercard cards, still the most numerous, accelerated their annual growth from 11.2% to 17.5%, reaching 1.2 million cards, but their share penetration slightly decreased over the year from 22% to 21.5%. The leader in number, Visa cards, slowed their annual growth from 27% to 19.4%, amounting to 2.9 million cards, also with an imperceptible decrease in share penetration from 53.1% to 52.7%. Other foreign cards (AmEx, Diners Club, MIR, UPI) also noticeably slowed in year-on- year growth - from 27.3% to 9.6%, amounting to 374.4 thousand units with a share reduction from 7.5% to 6.8%.
Debit cards continue to dominate the total number of cards, accounting for 61.8% or 3.4 million units, followed by debit cards at 38% or 2.1 million units, and credit cards accounting for the remaining tiny fraction at 0.2% or 10,900 units. Moreover, the number of debit and debit cards continues to grow-by 17% and 31% annually, respectively. As for credit cards, their number decreased by a mere 0.4% year-on- year (following a significant reduction of almost 50% the year before), but from 2020 to 2026, their number decreased by 23 times (from almost 250,000 units). While Visa previously held the lead only in debit and charge cards, while Mastercard held the lead in credit cards, starting in Q4 2022, Visa began to displace Mastercard from the leading position in credit cards as well, a trend that continued until 2025, after which Mastercard regained its leadership. As a result, by July 1, 2026, there were over 1.5 million Visa debit cards in circulation, and over 1.3 million Visa charge cards. Mastercard credit cards numbered approximately 5,000 as of the reporting date (with a slight year-on-year decline), compared to 3,700 Visa credit cards (with negligible year-on-year growth) and over 1,200 other foreign credit cards (with a 2.1-fold year-on-year increase).
Meanwhile, ArmInfo Investment Company found it appropriate to note, citing Acba Bank data, that approximately 20%, or over 1 million cards, of the plastic cards in circulation in Armenia as of May 2026 were issued by this bank, firmly strengthening its leading position. Moreover, in addition to its leadership in the total number of cards, Acba Bank also holds a leading position in pension and salary cards. Acba Bank accounted for almost 25%, or over 1.9 trillion drams ($5.1 billion), of the total volume of plastic transactions by the end of 2025, a figure it has held for several years now. Acba Bank also leads in online transactions, accounting for over 17% of the total market volume by the end of 2025. Acba Bank issues and services cards from five payment systems: Arca, Visa, Mastercard, AmEx (American Express), and UPI (China UnionPay). For several years, it has also been servicing cards from the Japanese payment system, JCB. Acba Bank also holds the lead in the number of ATMs and POS terminals, leading the way in mobile POS terminals and holding a top-three position in virtual POS terminals.
Three Armenian banks began issuing and servicing UnionPay International (UPI) cards two years ago: Acba Bank and Converse Bank (since May 2024) and Evocabank (since September 2024). Moreover, Acba Bank has been servicing UnionPay International cards since October 2019. Regarding HSBC cards, with the completion of the merger between HSBC Bank Armenia and Ardshinbank on November 29, 2024, the foreign bank's Visa-based cards were replaced by Ardshinbank's own cards.
As a reminder, an important technological solution was introduced in 2024: the ability to accept Arca card payments online through the EMV 3DS 2.0 EPS Armenian Card domain. This ensures the security of online Arca card payments for all Armenian banks, regardless of the platform where they are processed. In November 2024, Armenian Card introduced the ArcaPay instant express payment system, and a year later, in October 2025, it also launched the ArcaQR system. According to Armenian Card data as of June 2026, 12 banks and one payment and settlement organization (EasyPay) had already connected to ArcaPay, and eight banks to ArcaQR, with the majority connecting to both. Simultaneously, in October 2025, the Central Bank introduced a requirement to ensure interoperability for payments or transfers using QR codes (a single QR code image installed by banks and payment and settlement organizations at points of sale and/or services). Furthermore, Armenian Card has reached an agreement with international payment systems Mastercard and UPI (a memorandum signed in November 2025) to issue co-branded Arca cards (scheduled for the second half of 2026, with ArCa-UPI being the first) with the option of using them internationally. Currently, alongside ArCa tokenization in Google Pay and Apple Pay, the process of replacing digital chips on local cards (including co-branded ones) has also been initiated. This is necessary to ensure full accessibility of ArCa cards (including co-branded ones) in international services, i.e., token-based payments through Google Pay and Apple Pay.
