Retail activity in Lebanon maintained its steady progress over Q1 of 2015 with the number of outstanding payment cards rising by a yearly 9.2% to 2.51M. Notably, total cards held by foreigners fell considerably from 4.03% by March 2014 to 2.60% by March 2015 due to the ongoing local and regional instabilities that took their toll on non-residents’ sentiment.
In terms of category, debit cards remained the most preferred amongst cardholders accounting for 49.90% of the total as they were mainly destined for salaries’ domiciliation and daily use. Pre-Paid cards came in second with a 23.1% stake, followed by credit cards (20.8%) and charge cards (6.1%).
This improvement in the cards retail market came in line with the 6.33% yearly increase in the number of ATMs that reached 1,630 by the end of March. Mount Lebanon saw the highest increase in the number of new ATMs (+11% y-o-y) to settle at 515 in March or 31.6% of total ATMs, while Beirut remained the most concentrated with ATMs grasping 41.7% of the total.
As for Point of Sales (POS) devices, the number of contracts signed with merchants registered a 5.43% yearly uptick to 38,222 while the total number of machines (manual and electronic) barely moved from 31,376 in Q1 2014, to 31,059 in Q1 this year.
Total Number of Outstanding Payment Cards and Non Residents’ Share
Source: BdL