Volume of non-cash card payments soars
By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade
Non-cash payments, which are core of payments within market in developed countries, show positive dynamics in Azerbaijan.
Kamala Gurbanova, the director of the payment systems and settlements department of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA), has stated at a press conference that according to the results of the first half of 2019, the volume of non-cash payments via plastic cards in Azerbaijan reached 2 billion manats ($1.17 billion), which is a 58 percent growth compared to the figures for the same period last year.
In September 2018, President Ilham Aliyev approved the state program to expand digital payments in 2018-2020, according to which in 2021 the annual amount of cashless payments in Azerbaijan will reach approximately 17 billion manats ($9.97 billion).
Implementation of the state program will allow increasing the share of non-cash payments annually by seven percent. The share of cash payments in transactions carried out in the economy will fall from 74 to 40 percent.
During January-June 2019, the share of non-cash payments in the total card turnover rose to 20.1 percent, compared to 15.7 percent of the same period last year.
In the first half of the year, the number of card holders showed an increase of 17 percent, from 5.8 million to 6.7 million people.
The volume of electronic commerce has increased by 96 percent compared to the same period last year.
Meanwhile, the volume of payments using cards remained unchanged and amounted to 125 billion manats ($73.31 billion).
Gurbanova also noted that the number of POS-terminals has slightly decreased. However, this did not affect the quality of work.
The number of POS-terminals in the country in July amounted to 66,426, of which 41,035 were installed in Baku, and 25,391 - in other cities and regions of the country.
The total volume of non-cash payments through Azerbaijan’s national payment system reached 274 billion manats ($161.22 billion) in 2018, which is 32 percent more compared to the figures of 2017.
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Mirsaid Ibrahimzade is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @MirsaidIbrahim1
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