The share of cashless payments in Ukraine in January-June 2020 increased by 5.7 percentage points, to 55.1%, and the total number of cashless transactions rose by 4.1 percentage points, to 86.1% (3.36 billion) year-over-year, according to the website of the National Bank Ukraine (NBU).
According to the NBU, the total number of transactions (non-cash and cash withdrawals) using payment cards issued by Ukrainian banks in H1 2020 increased 16.6% (year-over-year), to 2.743 billion, and their amount – by 7% (year-over-year), to UAH 1.784 trillion.
At the same time, in H1 2020, the number of cash withdrawal operations decreased 12%, and the amount – by 5.0% (year-over-year), according to the NBU data.
“In January-June 2020, as before, the largest number of transactions using cards were payments in retail chains – 49.5%, transfers from card to card dominated in terms of amount – 42.3% (the average check of one such operation was UAH 1,420),” the press service said.
According to the report, as of July 1, 2020, the number of payment cards in Ukraine amounted to 71.7 million, which is 4.9% more than at the beginning of the year.
During June, 36.4 million payment cards (50.7% of all payment cards) were used for debit transactions (non-cash and cash withdrawals), a third of them (33.9%) were contactless and tokenized cards.
The number of contactless cards used in June increased 25.6%, to 9.6 million compared to January 2020, and tokenized ones rose by 22.5%, to 2.7 million.
According to the central bank, over the year the network of contactless merchant ATMs expanded by 33.5%, to 292,000, and the number of POS-terminals – by 11.2%, up to 340,600.
The ability to make contactless payments is provided by 84.3% of POS-terminals, while last year this figure was 86%, the NBU said.
As of July 1, 2020, the ratio of the total number of ATMs (contact and contactless) and the resident population was 8,500 per 1 million people, while last year this figure was 8,000 per 1 million people.
According to the NBU, the regional distribution of the ATM network, as before, remains uneven: Kyiv city, Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkov regions are in the lead in the number of payment cards and payment devices. At the same time, the smallest number of payment devices is observed in the west of the country, in Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
As of July 1, 2020, 70 participants of card payment systems were working in Ukraine.
Dynamics of balance of payments of Ukraine (USD MLN)
ARX Insurance Company (formerly AXA Insurance, Kyiv) in March 2020 paid customers almost UAH 89 million, which is 15% more than in the same period in 2019.
According to a press release from the insurer, the amount of average daily payments remains unchanged at about UAH 4 million.
The largest payment in March exceeded UAH 2.550 million and was made to an individual under a car insurance contract.
In addition, the medical assistance and contact center of ARX continue to work 24/7. The number of calls they received in March exceeded 40,000.
The company emphasizes that during quarantine it remains in touch with customers offline, online, in social networks, instant messengers. All products that ARX offers are sold as normal.
ARX has been operating in the insurance market for 25 years, the number of its customers is about 1 million. It is represented by 70 offices in all large cities of Ukraine, has 1,530 insurance agents, 90 operators of contact centers.
The surplus of Ukraine’s consolidated balance of payments in January 2020 was $906 million, while in January 2019 the deficit was $68 million, according to preliminary data from the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
The NBU said that the current account surplus of the balance of payments in January 2020 amounted to $590 million, which is 5.4% lower than the same indicator a year earlier ($624 million).
According to the central bank, the export of goods in the first month of 2020 increased 2.3% (in December 2019 by 1.4%) and amounted to $3.8 billion.
The main factor behind the growth of the indicator was an increase in the export of food products by 14.3% (in December 2019 by 15.7%) due to an increase in the export of grains by 21.9%, oils and fats – by 29.5%. In addition, the export of engineering products increased 33.9% (in December 2019 by 10.5%), as well as mineral products – 18.1% and chemical products –24.9%, whereas in December last year, these indicators decreased by 8.3% and 5.1%, respectively. At the same time, exports of ferrous and non-ferrous metals decreased significantly: 26.4% (in December 2019 27%).
Imports of goods in January 2020 decreased 1.7% (in December 2019 increased 7.9%) and amounted to $3.9 million.
Its reduction is due to a decrease in energy imports by 17.7% (in December 2019 by 14.3%), imports of ferrous and non-ferrous metals by 6.3% (in December 2019 by 1.8%) and chemical products – by 3.2%, whose import in December last year increased 6.3%.
At the same time, non-energy imports in January 2020 increased by 2.7% (in December 2019 by 13.8%), and the volume of import of engineering products decreased only 0.3%, while in December 2019 it increased 15.4%.
Dynamics of balance of payments of Ukraine (USD mln)
