Transactions worth over HRK 148 billion (around EUR 20 billion) were generated in 2017 via 8.9 million payment cards issued to consumers and enterprises, up nearly 7 percent on the year, according to the Croatian National Bank.

As of 31 December 2017, there were 8,894,172 payment cards in Croatia, including over 7 million debit and 1.88 million credit cards. There were 1 percent more debit and 0.2 percent credit cards than at the end of 2016.

Of Croatia’s 4.3 million inhabitants, 3.38 million had payment cards, 8.48 million in total. On average, every Croat had 1.98 payment cards: 1.56 debit and 0.42 credit cards.

On average, 75,172 debit and 15,417 credit cards were issued every month in 2017. A total of 1.09 million payment cards were deactivated last year – 899,623 debit and 194,505 credit cards.

The average number of payment cards used monthly reached 4.48 million, the number of unused cards was 3.9 million and the number of blocked cards 500,000.

In 2017, 25 credit and two electronic money institutions issued payment cards and their users executed 431.31 million transactions, 8.4% more than in 2016, totalling HRK 148.42 billion (around EUR 20 billion), up 6.8 percent on the year.

On average, 8.03 transactions per payment card were executed monthly totalling HRK 2,763 (around EUR 370).

(HRK 1 = EUR 0.14)