ANF reports for El Diario:
Plastic money transactions grow
The use of the so-called plastic money, allowing pay for services and make purchases without the need for paper bills, advances in the country to a growth rate of 7.6% a year, as is clear from the information provided by the Authority Financial System Supervision (ASFI) to ANF.
Until August of this year, the regulator recorded 2,929,033 debit cards, and 102,235 credit cards, an increase of 38.3% compared to the data registered in 2011 when they accounted for a total of 2,191,442 cards.
The number of registered cards (3,031,268) on the number of accounts opened deposits (8,489,134), until September, representing 35.7%.
MAGNETIC STRIPE
The debit card is a plastic bank -of a magnetically band used to withdraw money from an ATM and to pay for purchases in stores that have a terminal card reader tool.
It differs from the credit card the money used to take debit and not become available in the bank account, as with credit cards.
DEBIT
Credit cards, in addition to being a means of payment, are also a form of financing, allowing shopping without the obligation to pay all the money at once and with the possibility of returning it, in installments.
In Bolivia there are 4,753 financial points of attention which are 2,600 ATMs and 2,153 are branches, agencies and others. The number of ATMs grew by 60% over the amount recorded in 2011 when 1,629 were counted.
TRANSACTIONS
The use of bank cards is part of the so-called electronic banking in 2014, that processed 14.5 million transactions, Bs776 billion, about four times the country’s GDP. According to the Central Bank of Bolivia (BCB), electronic transfers recorded growth of 20% annually.
Bolivian Thoughts 