The number of credit/debit cards issued by banks continues to increase, says Bank of Albania

Bank of Albania has released a report that shows the increase of credit and debit cards issued by private banks recently. According to the report, in the past five years, their number increased by 54% and nowadays one in three Albanian citizens owns a credit or/and debit card.

Only during the first semiannual of this year, the number of cards issued by private banks increased by 8000 while the total number of cards in use is estimated to be 870 thousand (Albania has a population of 2.9 million). The report says most the issued cards which are frequently used by the citizens are the debit cards (90% of them) which are linked to current accounts. In turn, the number of credit cards is estimated to be only 78 thousand (figure calculated on June 2015).

The increase of debit cards’ use has increased the number of bank transactions in the past years, yet transactions are dominated by cash withdrawals. Banks recorded an amount of ALL 109 billion of card transactions, where 92% of them were cash withdrawals.

News source: Shqiptarja.com
Photo credits: Tax Credits / Flickr