BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 18
By Sadraddin Aghjayev - Trend:
Cashless payments are increasing in Azerbaijan, MasterCard Country Manager for Azerbaijan Erdem Chakar told Trend.
“There are several reasons for this. First and foremost, the Cashless Azerbaijan State Program, which has been prepared by the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, with Mastercard’s consultancy support, has supported the digitalization and transformation of the payment ecosystem,” the MasterCard country manager said.
The implementation of this program has digitized and transformed the payment ecosystem of Azerbaijan, the number of payment and contactless cards, devices for accepting non-cash payments, as well as contactless payments and e-commerce has increased. In addition, with the help of our technology MDES (Mastercard Digital Enablement Service - turns a device connected to internet into a means of secure payment), payments through NFC technology have become available in Azerbaijan. From now on, consumers do not need to have a bank card with them," Chakar said.
“As to the growth, I can talk about market level growth. As per Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) data, cashless payments grew 47 percent in volume and cards grew 23 percent,” the MasterCard representative noted.
“But the first 3 months of 2020 were pre-pandemic (COVID-19) so the difference will be really dramatic in second half of 2021 as compared to second half of 2020 as we get out of the coronavirus-related restrictions with the successful management of the pandemic at the national level as well as widespread vaccination,” he added.
---
Follow the author on Twitter: agdzhaev