ArmBusinessBank to start issuing Visa cards since April
2009-03-11 17:28:00
ArmInfo. ArmBusinessBank (ABB) is going to start issuing the first
cards of international payment system VISA International, Chairman of
ABB Board Ara Kirakosyan told ArmInfo.
He said that ABB became an affiliated member of VISA Int. System on
December 4, 2008, and intends to issue VISA cards of Electron, Classic,
Business and Gold kinds. At the same time, Kirakosyan
pointed out that the bank has become much more active in the card
market due to operations with ArCa and MasterCard, and the indices
ensured over 1.5 years are direct evidence of this. Thus, there are a
total of 15150 active cards issued by ABB, 8800 of them being local
ArCa cards, 6350 – MasterCard. In 2008 the bank issued 12 thsd cards
and intends to ensure the same number in 2009.
Speaking of the card business development, Kirakosyan said that to
diversify its services, ABB and foreign companies are jointly working
out new products at the moment. "In 2 months we are going to offer the
market new card services offered by not a single bank in Armenia",- he
said.
He added that there are 54 ABB bancomats in Yerevan, regions of Armenia
and Nagorno-Karabakh, 4 new bancomats will be launched in the near
future. By the end of 2009 the bank intends to launch 32 more bancomats
and increase their number to 90.
At the same time, Kirakosyan said that ABB is still the only bank in
Armenia which has installed currency exchange facilities (33 in
number). 3 new such facilities will be launched in the near future,
and by late 2009 ABB intends to increase their number to 61. According
to him, a total of $800-1000 operations are daily carried out by means
of each device. These devices exchange USD, EUR RUR,
GBP, UAH and CHF online. "The exchange rate is completely regulated
online by the ABB head office", Kirakosyan said.
As of 1 Jan 2009, the ABB shareholders are the Ukrainian Ukrprombank
(35%), Ukrainian insurance company Alpha-Garant (35%) and the Chrystie
Management Inc. company (30%).