PayPal, Diners Club may come to Belarus soon

Bankers are looking in an opportunity of bringing payment systems PayPal and Diners Club on the Belarusian market.

Deputy Chairman of the Board of the National Bank Sergei Dubkov told about it on a press conference on 25 September to mark the launch of Alfa-Bank co-branding project Gippo.

Sergei Dubkov emphasized a robust development of non-cash transactions and electronic money in the country. There are plans to expand the amount of payment systems on the market in order to give a boost to cashless transactions in the country. With this idea in mind, the National Bank is working on establishing partnership with PayPal system. The company is currently compiling a list of questions, including questions about legal regulation and information security, on which Belarus is expected to prepare answers.

The National Bank also continues dialogue with Diners Club payment system. “I hope that this payment system will be present on our market by the 2014 IIHF World Championship,” Sergei Dubkov said. The targeted audience of this payment system includes the countries of Scandinavia and North America and, hence, a huge community of ice hockey fans.

As of 1 July 2013 there were 11.014 million payment cards in circulation in Belarus, up by 300,000 in Q2. An estimated 5.063 million of the total were of the BelCard payment system; 5.951 million – of international payment systems. Banking cards of domestic and international payment systems were emitted by 23 banks of Belarus. There are 3,468 self-service terminals, 3,871 ATMs, and 83 imprinters in the country. A total of 42,719 trade and service organizations of Belarus have 64,556 payment terminals installed. Their number has been consistently growing.

The share of cashless transactions in Belarus’ retail trade and paid services is expected to reach 50% by 2016.