Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan has great potential for development of cashless payment system.

Alper Meric, Mastercard Manager on Azerbaijan announced about this to reporters on November 4.

"The share of cash payments in the economy of Azerbaijan is more than 90 percent, and the country has great potential for development of cashless payments. There are already some achievements in this direction. This is ASAN service, payment of fines of traffic police on-line and other services. We want to see Azerbaijan as a regional leader in the field of cashless payments, the first country to introduce the most advanced technology of Mastercard, and are willing to share our experiences," he said.

Mastercard is working with 28 Azerbaijani banks, but expects to increase the number, according to Melic.

Mastercard manager said that the company's Azerbaijani branch will work under the concept of "Cashless Azerbaijan".

"To develop cashless payments and stimulate customer, Mastercard holds a variety of events in collaboration with local and international companies. In 2017, we plan to reward banks in Azerbaijan within the framework of stimulating the development of cashless payments," he said.

MasterCard is a global payments and technology company that connects billions of consumers, thousands of financial institutions, millions of merchants, governments and businesses worldwide.

Mastercard products and solutions make it easier, safer and more efficiently to solve everyday tasks such as shopping, travel, conduct business and manage finances. In Azerbaijani market, the company has been operating since 1997, and in 2016 the company opened its office in Baku, headed by Yasemin Bedir.

Yasemin Bedir at the post of head of MasterCard Europe’s office in Azerbaijan is responsible for strategically important directions of the payment system’s development in the country, as well as development of e-payments in 13 European countries.

In August 2016, turnover on payment cards through ATMs and POS-terminals in the country totaled 1.1 billion manats ($654,000), and this is 10.4 percent more than the same period last year, according to the Central Bank of Azerbaijan.

The CBA reports that the total number of transactions with payment cards for this period amounted to almost 6.8 million (an increase of 0.16 percent per year).

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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