Hansabankas has issued more than 0.5 million chip cards
2005-03-02 Back
Hansabankas has already issued 508,000 chip-based payment cards. As of March 2 2005, chip cards accounted for 60 percent of the total payment cards issued by Hansabankas.
According to Mr.Vitalijus Rancev, Director of Payment Cards Department, in Western European countries, chip cards make up 20-25 of the total cards.
Hansabankas was the first bank in Lithuania to have issued international chip cards (in August of 2003). Besides, all smart cards issued by the bank belong to the VISA system. According to Mr. V. Rancev, talks are under way to start issuing Mastercard and Maestro cards in the very near future.
Hansabankas has also been installing special point of sale terminals (POS) for acceptance of smart cards. As many as 1,600 smart terminals have been installed in Lithuania already.
As of January of 2005, total number of payment cards issued by all commercial banks in Lithuania stood at 2.7 million, of which 34 percent had been issued by Hansabankas.
