Money, money circulation and credit - страница 29

Besides Kazakh banks issue and distribute payment cards of international systems: VISA International, Europay International, American Express International, China Union Pay and Diners Club International.

For the last five years the development of plastic cards in Kazakhstan became one of the most dynamically developing financial instruments of cashless settlement and credit money forms.

The 1^>st table shows that beginning from 2004 till July of 2009 all the other indexes of plastic cards market development in our Republic grew. Thus the circulated cards quantity for the analyzed period increased on more than 5 million items or by 4 times and ran at 7039.7 thousand items, consequently the average monthly balance on the cards’ accounts against the beginning of 2006 on 63124.4 million tenge.

Table 1

The plastic cards market development indexes in Kazakhstan

As on January 1, 2010 banks issued 7.6 millions of payment cards and the quantity of these cards holders reached 7.1 million people (against the analogue period of 2009 – growth on 6.5 and 7,0 % consequently). The most widely-spread payment cards are cards of international systems, their share reached 97.1 %, local systems – 2.1 %.

In December, 2009 the transaction volumes with payment cards usage of the Kazakhstans emitters composed 300.6 billion tenge (the growth in compare with December, 2008 composed 18.4 %). The transactions’ quantity for December, 2009 reached 12.6 million and increased against December, 2008 to 14.1 %. Whereby the growth of wire transfers quantity reached 23.8 % (2.2 million transactions) and the quantity of cash withdrawal operations – 12.2 % (10.3 million transactions).

Plastic cards are manufactured from a special plastic and basically have a standard size: 2.125»x3.375» (about 53.9x85.6 mm.) and width – 0.039 (~ 0.76 mm.).

Plastic cards can be classified according to a variety of parameters. One of the main is an intended purpose. Cards can be devided on banking (sometimes they are called payment) and nonbanking (identification, club and discount).

Banking cards are supposed to be issued and used for performing of banking operations: opening of the accounts, settlement and cash services, currency trading, etc. Such card is a long service result of banking system of payment mechanism improvement and an integral feature of a modern human.