AREXIMBANK TO START SERVING ARCA CARDS STARTING APRIL 17

ArmInfo
2009-04-15 15:26:00

ArmInfo. Areximbank will start serving ArCa cards starting April
17, 2009, Deputy Director General of Areximbank Rouben Khachatryan
told ArmInfo correspondent. To note, the bank doesn’t issue local
ArCa cards.

He said that the bank has already completed all procedures on exchange
of channels of testing and final installation of communication
between the ArCa processing center and its own processing center
"Gascardservice". According to him, the bank offers its card holders
"Telecard" system supplement for mobile telephones which gives an
opportunity to easily manage payment cards via SMS messages, carry
out changes and control card operations.

He added that it is envisaged to introduce the service of card-to-card
transfer via bancomats starting 17 April, at the first stage it
will be possible to carry out the transfers between the cards issued
by Areximbank.

"Later it will be possible to carry out the transfers from Areximbank’s
cards to the cards of Gazprombank and other banks", Khachatryan
said. He added that it is also envisaged to shortly activate the
communal payments service via Areximbank bancomats. At the same time,
Khachatryan said that over the period from 2002 till April 1, 2009,
Areximbank issued 49034 plastic cards (46053 – Visa, 2981 MasterCard),
15439 of them are active (1694 – MasterCard, 13745 – Visa). According
to the deputy director of the bank, at present the bank has 31
operating bancomats (11 -in the regions, 20 – in Yerevan). Areximbank
has been a full member of VISA International since 2002 and a full
member of MasterCard since 2005. The former shareholders of the bank,
the companies close to the Impexbank (Moscow) preferred creation of
their own processing center to membership in the national ArCa payment
system and connection to processing of the national card system. After
Gazprombank (Russia) acquired the control the control stock of the
bank in late 2007, a decision was taken to combine the processing
centers "Gascardservice" and ArCa with possible serving of local cards.

According to Armenian Card data, by March 1, 2009, the number of
active plastic cards issued by Armenian Card payment system member
cards grew by 42% to 361702 as compared with the same period of 2008,
59% of them ArCa, 28% – Visa, 13% – MasterCard.