Three in four inhabitants of the Republic of Moldova on average own a payment card. In 2019, each inhabitant made 19 card payments on average, as opposed to three cashless payments in 2015. The ratio of POS terminals to the population is 8:1,000, shows a report on the development of the payment systems in Moldova for 2019 published by the National Bank of Moldova.

According to the report, which is quoted by IPN, the cards in circulation at the end of 2019 numbered over 2 million, an increase of almost 4% on 2018.

By the technical solution, the proximity cards represented 82% of the cards issued last year and 69.2% of the total number of owned cards. During the last four years, the number of proximity cards rose about 8.5 times, which contributed to the gradual replacement of hybrid cards that, for their part, earlier substituted the magnetic stripe cards.

Last year, the Visa payment system held a lead on the card market in Moldova with a share of 52.3%.

The social cards are the category with the highest rate of active cards – 52% of the operations performed with social cards are cashless payment operations, but the cash withdrawals in terms of value represent 84.2% of all the performed operations.

The report says four licensed banks account for about 90% of the payment card market of Moldova.