OREANDA-NEWS. On 21 February 2008 was announced, that as of February 1, 2008, 19 second-tier banks and JSC "Kazpost" realise issue of payment cards.

Second-tier banks issue payment cards of local systems: Altyn card – by JSC "Halyk Bank of Kazakhstan" and JSC "ATF Bank"; SmartAlemCard – by JSC "Bank TuranAlem"; KazCard – by JSC "Kazpost"; cards of JSC "Caspian Bank", TemirCard – by JSC "Темirbаnк", JSC "Citybank Kazakhstan" and JSC "Tsesnabank". Also commercial banks of Kazakhstan issue and distribute payment cards of international systems: VISA International, Europay International, American Express International, China Union Pay and Diners Club International.

As of February 1, 2008, the number of cards, issued by banks of Kazakhstan, was 5.8 million, the number of card holders was 5.5 million (growth - by 37.8% and 35.9% respectively, in comparison with the same period of the last year)[1]. As the most widespread cards, the cards of international payment systems have the share of 96.0% and the local cards – 4.0% respectively. As of February 1, 2007 this ratio was 95.4% and 4.6% correspondingly.

In January 2008 value of transactions using payment cards issued by banks of Kazakhstan was KZT 135.1 billion (23.9% growth in comparison with the same period of the previous year). In January 2008 volume of transactions was 6.0 million transactions (growth - by 7.0% in comparison with the same period of the last year). You can observe advanced growth of the volume of cashless payments (by 39.7% to 1.0 million transactions) in comparison with growth of the volume of cash withdrawal transactions (by 2.0% to 5.0 million transactions).