The number of payment cards in Lebanon (debit, credit, charge, and prepaid cards) fell by 5.69% (172,785 cards) during the first ten months of 2020 to 2,863,971 cards, down from 3,036,756 cards at year-end 2019. In detail, the number of debit cards rose by 36,956 YTD October 2020 to 1,891,000, while the number of credit cards plunged by 157,002 to 399,089, the number of charge cards dropped by 18,465 to 87,588 and the number of prepaid cards fell by 34,274 to 486,294 cards.  This drop in the number of cards is mainly attributed to the caps on spending limits introduced by banks mainly on international transactions in the light of the liquidity squeeze in foreign currency which dissuaded card holders from renewing their cards or obtaining new ones. In the same vein, the number of Points of Sales (POS) dropped by 10.28% YTD October 2020 to 34,030 as a result of merchants’ preference for cash sales to overcome withdrawal restrictions imposed by banks not to mention the closure of a number of enterprises amid the prolonged economic depression.

In a related note, the banking sector’s ATM network witnessed a drop in the number of ATM machines, which fell to 1,897 machines by October 2020, down from 2,003 at end of 2019. The drop in ATM machines can be attributed to the closure of some branches to accommodate for the slow economic environment and banks’ efforts to trim operating expenses. Mount Lebanon amassed the highest concentration of ATMs (698 ATMs <36.79%>), followed closely by Beirut and Suburbs (683 ATMs <36.00%>), North (200 ATMs <10.54%>), South (146 ATMs <7.70%>), Bekaa (139 ATMs <7.33%>), and Nabatieh (31 ATMs <1.63%>) regions.