Sacks of Cash in Myanmar Hard to Rout for MasterCard, Visa
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A year ago, Myanmar had no automated teller machines and not a single hotel or restaurant able to swipe the credit cards proffered by throngs of foreigners arriving in the newly opened country, who instead had to bring crisp U.S. dollars to pay for everything in cash.
It has come a long way since: 2,500 credit- and debit-card machines, known as point-of-sale terminals, and 450 ATMs including at least three at the gates of Yangon’s Shwedagon Pagoda, according to Kanbawza Bank Ltd., known as KBZ, the country’s largest privately owned bank.