OREANDA-NEWS. On 27 March 2009 was announced, that Sergey Shishov, Member of the Board of Priorbank, presented a memorable gift to the 700 000th customer of a Visa plastic bank card.

Today more than 5,6 million plastic bank cards are used in Belarus which proves that it is a usual tool for payment.

In the Belarusian market Priorbank is one of the leaders in terms of the issued payment plastic cards with a bank account in local currency. This year more than 107 thousand plastic cards have been issued for new customers.

The total number of Priorbank issued plastic cards has increased by 1,3 times and was equal to 726 thousand cards on March 1st, 2009. Nowadays Priorbank takes the second place (the first Belarusbank) in terms of the volume of issue with a share of the market equal to 13%.

“Priorbank has been a full member of the international payment system VISA International for 15 years. All this time it has been issuing an extensive selection of plastic bank cards of the leading international payment systems. Today in the credit card market of the country Priorbank occupies the leading position having increased its share of the market by 4%, from 45% to 49% since 2008. In 2008 Priorbank issued 72 thousand credit plastic cards and the total number became more than 193 thousand cards on March 1st, 2009. In June, 2008 being oriented on the best customers Priorbank launched a Program which helps increase credit limit for an open-end credit bank card," – noted Sergey Shishov.

In October 2008 Priorbank and velcom launched a common project devoted to crediting their customers: velcom's customers can pay their bills automatically by means of a Priorbank plastic card.

In 2008 Priorbank and WEBPAY open an opportunity for their customers to pay for goods and services in the Internet (Internet-acquiring). Now Visa plastic cards issued by any bank anywhere in the world are accepted in the Internet in Belarus.

This year Priorbank is going to enrich the range of cashless settlement services and stimulate the usage of the plastic bank cards.

In march, 2009 Priorbank announced an promoting game aimed to rise the number of plastic cards' payment through the bank's services such as the Internet-Bank Prior Online and SMS-Bank Prior Mobile. The game will last six months. The same kind of game aimed to promote payment in a shopping center is going to be conducted in April.

Priorbank is planning to offer a number of modern additional services for all those cardholders who are paid a salary on a plastic bank card. The aim of the project to provide a wide range of services for private individuals and make payment more convenient and comfortable for its users.

Owing to the received Visa license for the local e-commerce, Priorbank and WEBPAY (www.webpay.by) can continue active project development in the Internet-acquiring.