The Maldives Monetary Authority, the country's central bank, announced that since the initiation of bank card issuance by Maldivian banks, a total of 1.2 million cards have been issued. Remarkably, 74 percent of these issued cards remain active.
According the payment bulletin released by the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA), 48 percent of the debit cards issued in the Maldives are VISA cards, while 24 percent are Mastercard's, and 22 percent are American Express (AMEX) cards.
VISA cards make up 64 percent of the credit cards issued in the Maldives, with approximately 28 percent being AMEX cards. Additionally, Mastercard constitutes 99 percent of the prepaid cards issued by banks in the country.
A Maldivian bank first introduced debit cards in 2000. In 2004, credit cards were introduced.
There has been a significant rise in card transactions from one year to the next. Last year, a total of 46 million transactions were conducted through cards, amounting to MVR 18 billion. Among these, transactions worth MVR 17 billion were completed using debit cards, while the remaining MVR 1 billion worth of transactions occurred through credit cards.
In 2022, there were 39 million card transactions totaling MVR 16 billion. Additionally, during the same period, banks issued 750 debit cards. Of these, 64 percent of the cards were active and in use.
Approximately 85 percent of card transactions were processed through Point of Sale (POS) or card machines, while the remaining 15 percent were conducted online.
Financial transactions through cards and online methods have steadily replaced cash transactions, showing a consistent increase from one year to the next. In the previous year, remittances from one account to another reached MVR 563 billion, marking a substantial 60 percent increase compared to the figures recorded in 2019.
Sign In