November 3 (SeeNews) - The holders of debit and credit cards in Moldova performed transactions worth 9.3 billion lei ($843 million/572 million euro) using their cards in the first nine months of 2009, up from 8.5 billion lei a year earlier, the country's central bank said on Tuesday.
The figure covers cash withdrawals and payments charged to debit or credit cards.
Card users in the ex-Soviet country of four million people carried out 10.9 billion transactions in the January-September period, up from 10.2 billion a year ago.
The number of bank cards in use in Moldova rose to 738,562 at the end of September from 721,051 a year earlier. Moldovan commercial banks issued 169,999 cards in the first nine months of 2009.
Visa, MasterCard, Unicard and MoldCardSystem credit and debit cards are accepted in Moldova.
(1 euro=16.2599 Moldovan lei)