Ukrainians increasingly opting for bank cards over cash – NBU

The number of transactions with the use of payment cards issued by Ukrainian banks over the nine months of 2020 amounted to 4.3 billion, which is 18% more on year, the National Bank says.

The central bank's press service says Ukrainians completed transactions worth UAH 2.8 trillion, which is 8.7% more than in 2019.

"The trend is, first of all, due to the growing volume and number of non-cash transactions. Their share prevails in the total amount of card transactions. Thus, the amount of non-cash transactions stood at UAH 1.55 trillion, or 55.2% of the amount of all card transactions. Over the nine months of last year, the share was 49.7%," the report reads.

As for the number of non-cash transactions, their number is even higher: 86 out of 100 transactions with cards were cashless. At the same time, the number of cash withdrawals from cards decreased by 11.3% and their volume – by 3.3% against nine months of 2019.

"This year, the distribution of non-cash transactions with payment cards by amount has noticeably changed. Analysis by their types shows that in January-September 2020, the share of online transactions increased – it's almost 30% in terms of the sum of all non-cash transactions made with cards. For nine months of 2019, the share was 27%. As before, in terms of amount, card to card transfers dominated with 42.4% (the average receipt of one such operation was UAH 1,438), in terms of their number - settlements in retail chains were dominant (50.2%)," the National Bank said.

It is noted that the total number of payment cards in Ukraine as of October 1, 2020, amounted to 73.4 million, which is 7.4% more compared with January 2020.

Read alsoUkrainians leave record-high cashless tips in restaurants in JulyAlso, more than half of the total number and amount of non-cash transactions in retail chains (54% for both indicators) in the first nine months of 2020 were contactless, while a year ago – it was only a third.

The payment infrastructure reportedly continued to expand steadily over the nine months of 2020.

"The number of business entities that accept payment cards during this period increased by a third (by 31.7%) – to almost 316,400. Also, since the beginning of 2020, the number of POS-terminals has also grown – by 7.9 % (up to 360,400). More than 85% of all POS-terminals in trade provide for contactless payments," the report says.