Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 5
By Huseyn Veliyev - Trend:
The ministry of communications and high technologies prepares to attract a consulting company to enhance the profitability of Azerbaijani postal operator Azerpost Ltd., the minister of communications and high technologies of Azerbaijan Ali Abbasov told the media Sept. 5
He said the tasks of the consultant will be comprised of preparing a plan for recovery of the postal services and increasing profitability.
"At present there are many offers and the work is underway," the minister said.
Azerpost Ltd. started providing financial services to the public in April 2012, based on the authorization of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan. The postal operator provides banking services via an automated corporate information system which connects about 1,000 branches and subsidiaries of postal services operating throughout the country today.
The operator is allowed to provide services for the opening and management of accounts, money transfers, issuing of debit cards, transactions of buying and selling of currencies on the order of clients, as well as collection of cash and other valuable assets. In the future, there is the possibility of providing two more additional services, attraction of deposits and issuing of loans are under consideration.
Currently Azerbaijan post issues debit cards, and with the permission of the Central Bank the postal operator may be able to issue credit cards.
It is not excluded that Azerpost can begin to micro-credit through the bank without a banking license as practiced by a number of CIS countries today.
Azerpost LLC can compete with players of the banking market upon its entry into the banking market of Azerbaijan. Today, some 44 banks operate on the Azerbaijani banking market. The total number of their branches reaches 726, while the number of branches and post offices of Azerpost exceeds 1,600.