🔵 Ukrainians relentlessly move away from cash, indicates a National Bank of Ukraine report for card and contactless payments. Last year, the number of transactions with payment cards jumped 25% yoy, to 5.2 million, with the volume increasing by 23%, to $79 billion.
Highlights:
Cash transactions dropped by 12%
The number of Internet transactions jumped 31% yoy
Today 36.5% of card transactions are on the Internet; 50% at point-of-sale terminals
In December, 40.4 million different payment cards were used in Ukraine, more than one per adult
The number of businesses accepting payment cards jumped by 36% yoy, to 326,900.
The number of point-of-sale terminals grew last year by 12%, to 375,000. This is nearly double the level of five years ago.
In stores, almost 20% of transactions were with smartphones and other gadgets. The total was nearly $4 billion.
🔵 Ukraine plans to become a major producer of lithium batteries for Europe’s electric cars, Prime Minister Shmygal told reporters yesterday, reviewing talks he had in Brussels last month. By 2030, Europe will need 18 times more lithium than now, by 2050, 60 times more, he said. “Ukraine has the largest lithium deposits on the European continent,” he said. “Europe sees Ukraine as a partner, both in production and processing…We are interested in added value, production, processing, and the maximum creation of the finished product. Again, we do not want to be just a supplier of raw materials, as we have before.”
