In 2024, amid a full-scale war and ongoing attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, Ukrainians still preferred cashless card payments.
This is according to an analysis of the 2024 statistics, which the NBU conducted as part of its payment infrastructure oversight function, covering transactions with payment cards issued by Ukrainian banks and financial institutions.
The share of cashless transactions with payment cards remains high
The number of transactions using cards issued by Ukrainian banks and financial institutions in 2024 was 8,654.4 million. The total amount of such transactions was UAH 6,577.4 billion. Out of these transactions, 91.8% by number and 90.1% by total amount were made in Ukraine.
Most payment cards transactions in Ukraine were cashless. Ukrainians conducted 8,184.8 million cashless transactions worth UAH 4,243.5 billion in Ukraine and abroad.
Cashless card-based transactions thus reached 64.5% of the total amount of card-based transactions last year. The share of cashless transactions by quantity increased to 94.6% in 2024.
These positive developments demonstrate that Ukraine’s payment infrastructure can provide uninterrupted and reliable cashless card transaction servicing, supporting Ukrainians’ high level of trust in cashless payments.
Cashless payments in retail networks were most common
Analysis of cashless transactions using cards of Ukrainian issuers broken down by types shows that in 2024 point-of-sale transactions accounted for the majority of card transactions by number and by total amount, 73.4% and 46.8%, respectively (more than 6 billion transactions to the total amount of UAH 2 billion).
Card-to-card transfers accounted for 31.1% by amount (UAH 1,318.4 billion). By number, they represented 8.2% of all cashless transactions.
Online payments for goods and services accounted for 13.6% by number and 14.7% by total amount in all card-based cashless transactions. Such payments amounted to UAH 622 billion.
The average transaction amount in Ukraine in 2024 was:
- payments in retail networks – UAH 330 (UAH 325 in 2023)
- card-to-card transfers – UAH 1,958 (UAH 1,972)
- online payments for goods and services — UAH 561 (UAH 490).
Payment infrastructure is expanding, and card issuance is increasing
In 2024, the number of payment terminals in the retail and service networks increased by 10.5% compared to 2023, to 496,600 (97.5% whereof were contactless terminals). This was 16.4% above the quantity of payment terminals at the end of 2021. This means that, by number, Ukraine’s network of terminals has fully recovered from the losses it sustained in the first year of the full-scale invasion and continues expanding.
In 2024, the number of sales and services outlets that take payment cards, including online, also increased by 12.8% compared to 2023 and came in at 518,400 (up from 459,700 as of 1 January 2024).
The number of operating ATMs remained almost unchanged throughout 2024 (15,700 ATMs).
At the same time, the total number of payment cards issued by Ukrainian banks and financial institutions also rose last year. As of 1 January 2025, it reached 132 million. This was a 15% increase compared to the end of 2023, specifically due to the issuance of payment cards under the National Cashback, Zymova e-Pidtrymka, and e-Knyha government social support programs.
The number of payment cards used for monthly debit transactions rose at the same rate. The number of active cards thus grew by 13%, to 58.8 million (44.5% of issued payment cards).
Also, the previous years’ uptrend in the number of active contactless cards continued during 2024. In December 2024, their number went up by 14% compared to December 2023, to 35 million cards. Overall, more than half (60%) of active payment cards are contactless.
Tokenized payment cards (using the NFC technology) also retain their popularity. In December 2024, for instance, they rose in number to 16.5 million, up by 33% from December 2023. Thus, one in four active payment cards is tokenized.
As a result, about 95% of the number and total amount of cashless transactions in the retail network in 2024 were made using the contactless payment technology and the NFC technology.