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Departure of Visa and Mastercard boosted demand for cards of CIS issuers
According to RBC, that was the peak of the Russian card tourism season after Visa and Mastercard left the market in March, experts say.
The largest growth in the second quarter was reported by the Central Bank of Kyrgyzstan: the number of cards of international payment systems for the year increased by 39.7% compared to the same period last year (up to 1.2 million cards). As of July 1, 2021, the number of cards in issue, on the contrary, decreased by 5.6% year-on-year. The statistics include Visa, Mastercard, UnionPay cards and cards issued by the Russian Zolotaya Korona system.
Banks of Uzbekistan increased the number of cards by 26.2% over the year, up to 29.9 million cards. The local regulator does not single out cards of international payment systems in the statistics. In Q2 2021, this indicator grew by as few as 1.9%, while it reached 23.5% in the pandemic second quarter of 2020, when cashless payments increasingly grew in popularity worldwide.
In Armenia, the number of Visa and Mastercard cards during the period under consideration increased by 16.2% to exceed 2 million. For comparison: in Q2 2021, this figure increased by 5.11%.
Belarusian banks increased the number of cards by 11.52% to 17 million. In the second quarter of 2021, the number of cards decreased by 1.03%, in the second quarter of 2020 it grew by mere 0.9%.
At the end of May 2022 (data for June are not yet available), banks of Tajikistan issued over 4 million cards (+28% for the year, compared to 21% a year earlier).
The main risks arising from opening cards in a foreign bank are related to the fact that the client submits all data to a third party if s/he opens a card remotely through intermediaries. The package of documents may additionally include powers of attorney, which offers even more loopholes for scammers. Hidden risks are associated with the fact that opening a card abroad