CBA destroys banknotes worth 700M manats
By Sara Israfilbayova
Cash is something that many still can’t refuse for many reasons - easy to carry, accepted everywhere, etc., and it is a popular form of payment around the world, including Azerbaijan.
The average currency note can change hands hundreds of times in the course of its life, and at some point along the line, it’s almost bound to get torn, ripped, shredded, burned, or any other type of damage that simply can’t be fixed.
When currency is torn, it is usually taken “out of circulation”, it is immediately sent to a shredder and sent to a landfill.
Banknotes and coins worth 702.7 million manats ($412.7 million) were destroyed in Azerbaijan in 2016, according to the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA).
The bank reported that it purchased banknotes worth 9.4 million manats ($5.5 million) from the company that prints banknotes for Azerbaijan, in 2016.
In 2015, the CBA bought banknotes worth almost 790.2 million manats ($464.1 million) and destroyed banknotes and coins worth 1.75 billion manat ($1.027 billion).
In general, in 2016, the volume of banknotes and coins in circulation increased by 1.5 billion manats ($881 million)[in 2015 this figure fell by 5.4 billion manats ($3.2 billion)], reaching 6.96 billion manats ($4.088 billion) compared to 5.4 billion manats ($3.2 billion) in 2015.
Being one of Azerbaijan's state attributes manat was first put into circulation on August 15, 1992. The existing banknotes were determined under the Presidential decree 'on changing the nominal value and price scale (denomination) of banknotes of Azerbaijan' dated February 7, 2005.
The average life for all bills is 3-5 years, of coins - 20 years. Today, a heavy load falls on banknotes of one and five manats. Their life cycle is 1.5-2 years, since they are deformed faster due to the most frequent use. Therefore, to reduce the pressure on them and reduce the costs of the CBA in due time, the possibility of replacing them with metal money was considered.
The government seeks to expand the scope of non-cash payments , while the Taxes Ministry works to encourage non-cash payments and non-cash transactions.
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