Giorgi Glonti, vice-president of the National Bank of Georgia, and Svetlana Georbelidze, Regional Director of Visa International in CIS, met on May 5 to discuss the widening of Visa application area. The National Bank, together with the commercial banks, will facilitate the popularization of local settlements in the financial market with the use of Visa cards. This will make the payment of communal and other taxes and check payments easier for the Georgian citizens, vice-president Glonti said. The increase in transactions in lari will positively affect the development of the country’s financial system. As a result of the wider use of plastic cards in the national currency, more funds will be accumulated in the commercial banks. A large part of these are now kept on their correspondent accounts with the National Bank. The National Bank will more effectively control the money supply. Maximum transparency of the movement of money supply will allow the National Bank and the Ministry of Finance to plan the state budget and calculate tax revenues with more preciseness. 22 thousand commercial banks of 190 countries are the members of Visa International. 1.3 billion plastic cards are in operation, with the total turnover of USD 2.7 trillion. The main Visa member banks in Georgia are: Bank of Georgia JSC, TBC Bank, Cartu Bank, Procredit Bank, and associated members are: Respublica Bank, Agro Business Bank, Basisbank, People’s Bank and United Georgian Bank. More than 100 thousand plastic cards are in use in Georgia. Of this, more than 90% are those of Visa Electron, 5% - Visa Classic, 4% - Visa Gold and 1% - Visa Business. In October of 2004 an agreement was made between the National Bank and Visa on the clearing of the operations made in the national currency using the Visa cards (NNSS), which entered into force from January 31, 2005.