The statistics on the use of payment cards issued by Ukrainian banks in Q2 2023 shows that the number ofcashless payments delivered by Ukrainians remains high despite the second year of the war.
Thus, the total number of transactions (cashless payments and cash withdrawals) by means of payment cards issued by Ukrainian banks was 1,842.9 million with the value of UAH 1,334.9 billion in Q2 2023, whereof cashless transactions accounted for 1,710.6 million transactions of UAH 829.5 billion.
So Ukrainians continue to favor cashless card transactions.
Nine out of ten payment card transactions are cashless
The share of cashless transactions in Q2 2023 was 62.1% of the total of payment card transactions in value and 92.8% - in number (69.4% and 94% in Q1 2023, respectively).
Analysis of cashless transactions broken down by types shows that in Q2 this year point-of-sale (POS) transactions accounted for the majority of card transactions in value and in number (46.4% and 72.6% respectively). Retail networks executed 1242.5 million transactions in the amount of UAH 385.2 billion.
In Q2 2023, card-to-card transfers were one third in value (32.1%) and almost one tenth in number (8.5%). Online payments for goods and services accounted for 14.9% in value and 14.6% in number.
In the reporting period, the average amount of one transaction was:
- in retain networks - UAH 310 (in Q1 this year - UAH 344)
- card-to-card transfers - UAH 1,829 (UAH 2,133)
- online payments for goods and services - UAH 495 (UAH 460).
Payment infrastructure and the number of cards have expanded since the beginning of the year
The number of active POS-terminals in retail and service networks increased by 8.3% in June in contrast to January (up to 388,100 units), and the number of retail and service stores accepting payment cards rose by 12.2% (up to 355,900 units).
Since the beginning of the year, the ATM network is on the way to recovery. Increase in ATMs was 1.2% (up to 15,800 units).
In June 2023, the total number of payment cards issued in Ukraine stood at 110.3 million. This is a 1% increase from January 2023.
Also, the number of active payment cards has a more significant increase by 3%, from 45.9 million in January up to 47.2 million in June.
The number of contactless payment cards also continues to rise. In June the number of contactless payment cards rose by 5% compared to January. Generally, over a half (57%) of active payment cards in June were contactless cards.
Tokenized payment cards are also popular among Ukrainians.Their number increased since the beginning of the year by 14% (to 9.7 million pieces). In the total number of active cards tokenized cards make up 21% (19% in January 2023). Thus, approximately each fifth payment card is tokenized.
As a result, only one tenth of transactions (10.6% in value and 9.4 in number) in Q2 this year was executed by reading card data in retail networks. In Q1 2023, the share of said transactions was 12.4% and 11.1% respectively.
The remaining transactions were contactless (with contactless cards or using smartphones and other devices) and amounted to UAH 344.5 billion in Q2 2023 (UAH 307.4 billion in Q1).
Please be reminded that the NBU has introduced harvesting of new statistical reports on credit and debit transfers in Ukraine.
On 1 April 2023, payment services providers began reporting statistics on credit and debit transfers to and from accounts in trial mode. For this reason, some payment services providers reviewed indicators of monthly statistical reports on payment card transactions submitted to the NBU. Said changes in no event indicate a decline in cashless settlements in Ukraine. This is only the matter of redistributing data on payment transactions executed by using different payment instruments between statistical reporting indicators.