According to Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA), the central bank of the country, a total of 1.2 million bank cards have been issued since the initiation of card issuance by Maldivian commercial banks, with 74% of the total issued cards still remaining active.
As per MMA’s payment bulletin, 48% of the debit cards issued in the Maldives are VISA cards, while 24% are Mastercard and the remaining 22% are American Express (AmEx) cards.
VISA cards also make up 64% of the credit cards issued in the Maldives with 28% being AmEx cards. Mastercard constitutes 99% of the prepaid cards issued by the banks in the country.
A Maldivian bank first introduced debit cards in 2000, and credit cards in 2004.
In recent years, card transactions have significantly risen year-on-year. In 2022, a total of 46 million transactions were conducted through cards which amount to MVR 18 billion in total.
Among these, transactions worth MVR 17 billion were completed using debit cards with the remaining MVR 1 billion completed using credit cards.
MMA reports a total of 39 million card transactions in 2022 amounting to a collective total of MVR 16 billion while banks issued 750 debit cards during the same fiscal year out of which 64% of the cards were active and in use.
Approximately 85% of card transactions were processed through Point of Sale (PoS) machines with the remaining 15% conducted online.