Plastic cards market is still developing dynamically in Georgia. By June 1 of the current year, the number of banking plastic cards issued by 13 commercial banks (out of 22 commercial banks existing in Georgia) reached 2.8 million. This is almost twice as high as the indicator for the same period of 2007. 89.3 percent fall to debit cards, as compared to 97.7 percent in the previous year. This is a result of a fast growing demand for credit cards. If the growth of the number of debit cards for the last year constituted 77.4 percent, the number of credit cards increased 9.1 times over the same period.

The growing popularity of VISA cards is still notable - its total amount constitutes 78.1 percent of all cards being in the circulation. EUROCARD/MASTERCARD has a 13.8 percent market share, and local cards take up the remaining 8.1 percent. It should be emphasized that the share of VISA cards among the total amount of the cards being in the circulation increased by 11.1 points during the last year.

The volume of operations carried out by plastic cards has been increasing. In May of the current year 2.4 mln operations were carried out by plastic cards, issued by resident commercial banks, the total value of which reached 349.7 mln GEL - more than 63.2 percent as compared to May 2007. 95.1 percent of the total value of operations with plastic cards issued by resident commercial banks was carried out within Georgian territory (including operations by internet) and the remaining 4.9 percent - abroad.

Plastic Card Services which are carried out via resident commercial bank's ATMs and POS-terminals are also important. In May of the current year 975.4 thousand operations were conducted through them. Total value of these operations made 218.7 mln GEL. 88.8 percent of this amount fall on cards issued by resident banks and 11.2 percent - on cards issued by non-residents.