BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, February 24. With a 33.3 percent rise over the same date in 2023, the total number of payment cards in circulation in Kyrgyzstan reached 9,184 million as of December 31, 2024, Trend reports.
According to data from the National Bank of Kyrgyzstan, services for issuing and acquiring payment cards were provided by 21 commercial banks for the national payment system Elcard and by 17 banks for international payment systems.
In terms of card types, the national system Elcard accounted for 3.651 million cards, or 39.8 percent of the total. International payment systems contributed 5.533 million cards, or 60.2 percent of the total.
The majority of these were issued under the Visa system, which accounted for 5.373 million cards, or 58.5 percent of the total. Mastercard followed with 69,825 cards (0.8 percent), while Russia's Zolotaya Korona system issued 87,291 cards (1 percent), and Union Pay International had just 3,053 cards (0.03 percent).
As many as 21 commercial banks and 304 branches of commercial banks were operating in Kyrgyzstan as of December 31, 2024. Five of these commercial banks provided services in accordance with Islamic principles of banking and finance, both in national and/or foreign currencies.
