January 30 (SeeNews) - The point-of-sale (POS) spend on Visa cards issued by Bulgarian banks rose 27% to 1.15 billion euro ($1.56 billion) in fiscal 2013 ending September 30, Visa Europe said on Thursday.
The increased volume on the Bulgarian market comes from the growing number of POS transactions, reaching 30 million and accounting for a 30% raise as opposed to 2012, the company said in a press release.
The total number of Visa cards issued by Bulgarian banks equaled 3.45 million in 2013, which is 6.0% more than in 2012, with the average POS transaction value falling by 2.7% to 38.4 euro.
The number of POS transactions per Visa-issued card also grew significantly by 23%, in 2013 reaching 8.7 transactions on average per year.
"All these indications prove that the majority of the Bulgarian consumers are using their Visa card more often for smaller daily purchases," Visa Europe chief executive officer Nicolas Huss said in the press release.
The steady increase achieved is due to the constantly rising commercial spend with Bulgarian-issued Visa debit cards, which marked a surge of 32% on an annual basis, totaling 764 million euro in 2013. It was also enabled by the larger number of Visa debit transactions on POS devices, reaching slightly over 22.3 million, which is 34% more compared to 2012. The number of POS transactions per Visa debit card has also grown up with 27%, reaching 7.4 transactions on average on an annual basis.
Online spending with Visa cards at Bulgarian merchants topped 167 million euro in 2013, thus contributing to an almost 92% growth compared to the previous year.
($=0.7355 euro)