Volume of non-cash payments in Azerbaijan to reach $10B
By Rashid Shirinov
The annual volume of non-cash payments in Azerbaijan will reach about 17 billion manats ($10 billion) by 2021.
This is indicated in the state program on expansion of digital payments in 2018-2020, approved by the President Ilham Aliyev on September 26.
The implementation of the program will allow increasing the share of non-cash payments by 7 percent annually. The program reads that the share of cash payments in transactions carried out in the Azerbaijan’s economy will decrease from 74 to 40 percent.
In order to speed up the application of the state program, three basic conditions and specific objectives have been identified for each of them.
The state program notes that the creation of a more favorable environment provides not only prohibiting regulations, but also the use of special incentive mechanisms.
“To make the economy transparent, it is necessary to remove institutional obstacles to the development of digital payments. For this, it is necessary to fully ensure the property rights and contractual rights of entrepreneurs, create markets leading effective and competitive activities, improve the tax system, including eliminating cases of tax evasion,” the program reads.
It also notes that for the development of financial markets it is necessary to increase the activity of the banking sector, strengthen competition in the sector, create an active money market, improve the ability to assess bank risks, and take measures to offer cheap and quality banking services to entrepreneurs and the public.
“Strengthening financial inclusion requires ensuring the availability of banking services in all regions, expanding banking products and services and improving their quality, reducing costs, and raising public awareness of digital payments,” the state program says.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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