After a long period of price declines, payment cards began to experience a very rapid increase in the average market cost of issue, maintenance, and cash withdrawals at the beginning of autumn.
After a long period of falling prices, the average market cost of issue, servicing, and cashing of payment cards began to increase quite rapidly with the beginning of autumn.
At the end of summer, the National Bank published data on the payment card market for the first half of 2010. During these six months, the number of active payment cards decreased by 1.2% (to 28.74 million units). Despite this small (compared to the 2009 decline) decrease, Ukrainians began to use cards more often: the number of transactions using cards issued by Ukrainian banks increased by as much as 13% in just one half of the year (to 322.11 million transactions).
And the total amount of these transactions has increased significantly since the crisis – by 25% compared to the same period in 2009 (the average monthly turnover on one card reached 7 thousand hryvnias). However, cash withdrawal transactions still dominate the transaction structure: they, as before, accounted for 93.6% of the total amount of card transactions.
Against this background, it is not surprising that the consolidated ATM fleet grew noticeably in the first half of the year – by 2.8% (to 29,740 ATMs). The fleet of card terminals at retail outlets is growing even faster – by 3.9% over six months (to 107,038 devices). Finally, the market of payment card issuers itself expanded by several players – reaching a volume of 140 institutions.
In turn, the Ukrainian Processing Center (UPC) also published interesting statistics. The growth in online store turnover from July 2009 to July 2010 amounted to 85%. On average, Ukrainians make 140 purchases in each such store monthly.
UPC also noted that today holders of payment cards of Ukrainian banks make an average of 4.1 transactions per month, while a year ago this figure barely reached 3.3 transactions per month. The average transaction amount today is UAH 453.21, which is 10% more than last year.
In addition, in September 2010, Oschadbank and UkrSibbank merged their partner ATM networks - in total, the combined partner network of the two institutions and their previous partners now operates over 5,800 ATMs.
The past two months have also been marked by the arrest of more hackers who withdrew funds from plastic cards, whose holders actively made payments with them on the Internet. A special operation was carried out in Odessa.
Finally, some organizations continued expanding their own payment card infrastructure. Thus, ERDE BANK introduced the ability to top up its payment cards through I-Box terminals; and Raiffeisen Bank Aval announced the ability to pay with the bank's cards in all taxis of the Kyiv carrier Taxi-Troika.
The immediate topic of our review was the dynamics of the plastic card market for individuals with hryvnia accounts over the two months since the last plastic review on Prostobank.ua. The main news of this period is that almost all cards noticeably "rose in price" in September (if we talk about the average market value of expenses). And some types of cards began to "go up in price" already in August.
Average expenses of hryvnia plastic cards of banks from among the 50 leaders by assets over the past two months, according to research by the company "Prostobank Consulting" (by "expenses" we mean the following summarized payments by the client: issuance and servicing of a plastic card plus a one-time cash withdrawal of 1000 hryvnias in "their" (issuing bank's) ATM plus a one-time cash withdrawal of 1000 hryvnias in "someone else's" (a bank that is not a partner of the issuer) ATM):
| Card Type | Average Market Costs as of July 27, 2010 | Average Market Costs as of August 27, 2010 | Average Market Costs as of September 27, 2010 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visa Electron | 50.72 UAH. | 50.76 UAH. | 52.27 UAH. |
| Maestro | 50.33 UAH. | 50.79 UAH. | 52.14 UAH. |
| Visa Classic | 147.50 UAH. | 144.06 UAH. | 145.88 UAH. |
| Mass Mastercard | 152.87 UAH. | 151.35 UAH. | 153.52 UAH. |
| Visa Gold | 527.36 UAH. | 528.50 UAH. | 535.26 UAH. |
| Gold Mastercard | 558.36 UAH. | 558.027 UAH. | 567.12 UAH. |
According to Prostobank Consulting
As we can see, over two months, the average market expenses of cardholders of hryvnia Visa Electron and Maestro cards increased by 1.50-1.80 hryvnias. Also, Gold cards in hryvnia of both payment systems "went up" by 7.90-8.80 hryvnias. Moreover, the entire increase in average market expenses (both for "gold" cards and for Visa Electron and Maestro) occurred in September – In August, the cards had not yet become practically more expensive.
As for the classic hryvnia cards Visa Classic and Mass Mastercard, they "fell cheaper" in August – by 1.50 hryvnias in the case of MC and by as much as 3.50 hryvnias in the case of Visa. However, already in September, the "classics" began to quickly "go up in price" – like all other types of cards (by the way, cards with foreign currency accounts were also affected by this trend). As a result, by the end of September, the hryvnia Mass MC had already exceeded its average market spending value at the end of July. But the hryvnia "classics" Visa remained the only type of plastic that became cheaper by the end of two months.
One of the curious aspects of the competition is that the hryvnia Visa Electron could briefly celebrate its victory throughout August – then its average market cost was slightly lower than that of the hryvnia Maestro. However, in September, Maestro once again took first place in the ranking of the cheapest main types of hryvnia plastic (which it first won at the end of April 2010 – and before that, Visa Electron was significantly cheaper). Well, no big deal – at least Visa has a lot of options in both its “classic” and “gold” cards. cards in terms of low cost continues to confidently lead in each of these two segments.
The number of card issuers among the 50 leading banks over the past two months has changed as follows (in brackets - the number of issuers as of September 27, 2010). Two new players began issuing Visa Electron (45) and Maestro (34). Hryvnia Visa Classic (45), Mass Mastercard (35), and Visa Gold (44) received one new issuer each. The gold card from MC did not find new issuers.
Thus, the status quo that emerged in the winter of 2009-10 is maintained - out of 50 leading banks, the number of Visa card issuers exceeds the number of Mastercard issuers by ten to eleven institutions. But, for example, a year ago (September 27, 2009), cards of both payment systems were issued by approximately the same number of banks (30-35). However, since then, the number of MC issuers has practically not increased - while Visa is now issued by almost every one of the 50 banks.
And now we offer you the most advantageous offers on hryvnia plastic cards (except Gold cards) from banks among the 50 leaders in assets, according to research by the company "Prostobank Consulting" as of September 27, 2010 (the "total expenses" column contains the same customer payments as in the previous table: issuance and servicing of a plastic card plus a one-time cash withdrawal of 1,000 hryvnias at "your" (issuing bank's) ATM plus a one-time cash withdrawal of 1,000 hryvnias at "someone else's" (a bank that is not a partner of the issuer) ATM):
Visa Electron, account in hryvnia
| Bank | Total expenses | Issue + servicing | ATM withdrawal, % of withdrawal amount | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Issuing bank | Other banks | ||||
| 1 | Ukrgasbank | 20 UAH. | free | 0.5% (min. 1 UAH) | 1% + 5 UAH |
| 2 | BTA Bank | 20 UAH. | free | no commissions | 1.5% + 5 UAH. |
| 3 | Ukrsotsbank | 25 UAH. | 5 UAH. Related posts Recent posts1 | ||
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