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ndonesian payment card holders and users voted Bank Central Asia (BCA), the nation's second largest lender, the most trusted card issuer in the country this year, a regional survey stated Thursday.

Regional research companies Lafferty Group and Blackbox Research (Blackbox) on Thursday announced the lender was the recipient of its most trusted card issuer award in Indonesia.

In Indonesia, BCA also won the best card issuer award while Citibank, with its MasterCard Citi Platinum Card, received the award for the best premium credit card.

Citibank emerged victorious on the regional front by taking home three awards for the Southeast Asia category.

It won awards for the best card issuer and most trusted card issuer, as well as best premium credit card issuer in the regional major awards category.

The survey, which aims to identify the best payment card service providers in the region, surveyed over 5,000 payment cardholders across five markets: Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

With trust ranking high as a key success factor for card providers, the "Most Trusted Card Issuer" awards were handed out to providers in each of the five countries.

The two research companies stated that such awards were the first of their kind in the region, both wholly independent and based entirely on the opinions of consumers who hold and use payment cards.

"Customers are the arbiters of success. A prerequisite to achieving success and sustainable profits is to have products and services that are attuned to meeting customer needs," said Michael Lafferty, chairman of Lafferty Group, in a statement.

Other regional winners included Visa and HSBC. Visa won the most trusted card company in Southeast Asia award, whilst HSBC won the best classic card and best debit card awards.

According to the central bank, credit card transactions have been on the raise. Last year, it recorded an increase in credit card transactions by around 45 percent in 2008 from a year earlier.

Transactions using the plastic cards amounted to Rp 107.3 trillion last year, jumping from Rp 72.6 trillion a year earlier.

The transactions came from around 11.5 million cards, which were circulating by the end of last year.

The Indonesian Credit Card Issuer Association (AKKI) said on average, a credit card was being used to pay transactions of up to Rp 1.5 million per month. In Indonesia, many people switch between different credit cards

The survey also highlighted that debit cards had emerged as a transformational product in those five markets.