Central Bank discloses number of contactless cards in circulation

12 June 2020 13:58 (UTC+04:00)

1 760

Today, 1.9 million (22.6 percent) of 8.4 million plastic cards which are in circulation in Azerbaijan account for non-contact ones, Farid Osmanov, executive director of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA), told Trend on June 11.

Osmanov said that the CBA is implementing the measures within the Cashless Azerbaijan concept to improve the conditions for the introduction of cashless payments as an increase in cashless payments by 10 percent allows reducing the shadow economy by five percent.

The executive director stressed that one of the main priorities for the CBA is to ensure the development of payment channels through the review of the latest trends and the introduction of innovative technologies in this sphere.

"Some 28,000 POS terminals which are being used at the moment support the payment through contactless cards or mobile devices with the near field communication (NFC) function," Osmanov added.