Lithuania’s Payment Card Market is Growing Fastest in CEE

Lithuania’s payment card market, which surged by 80% in the first 9 months of the year is considered by experts as the fastest growing payment card market in Central and Eastern Europe. According to Visa International 54% of all payments in Lithuania are made by using payment cards, which is the highest payment card use ratio in CEE. Lithuania’s commercial banks had issued 1.4 million different payment cards as of October 1, 2002, compared to 774,000 cards in the same period of 2001. The total turnover of cards amounted to LTL 5 billion in the first nine months of this year, and more than doubled if compared to the same period a year later.