Plastic cards market is developing dynamically. The number of banking plastic cards issued by Georgian commercial banks in circulation by February 1, 2009 amounted to 3.6 million, 1.7 times more than the figure for the same date of 2008. Out of this amount 84.9 percent are debit cards, as compared to 92.7 percent a year ago. The change of structure of plastic cards market is a result of fast growing demand for credit cards. While the growth of the number of debit cards for the past year constituted 57.9 percent, the number of credit cards increased 3.1 times over the same period.

VISA cards account for 80.1 percent of all cards in circulation, followed by EUROCARD/MASTERCARD with 13.5 percent, while local cards take up the remaining 6.4 percent. It should be noted that the share of VISA cards among the total amount of cards in circulation increased by 5.7 percentage points during the past year.

In January of the reference year 2.4 million operations were carried out with plastic cards issued by resident commercial banks, total volume of which increased by 6.5 percent compared to the corresponding period of 2008 and constituted 269.3 million GEL. Out of the total volume of operations with plastic cards issued by resident commercial banks 94.9 percent account for the operations carried out within Georgian territory (including operations by internet) and 5.1 percent account for the operations carried out with the same cards abroad.

The usage of plastic cards in ATMs and POS-terminals of Georgian banks is also noteworthy. During the reporting month 781.5 thousand operations were carried out using ATMs and POS-terminals of the resident commercial banks, total value of which made up 148.3 million GEL. 88.0 percent out of this amount fall on cards issued by resident banks and 12.0 percent - on cards issued by non-resident banks.

Current statistical information is published on the statistics page of the NBG's website.