BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 22. Azerbaijani banks reduced the purchase and sale of foreign currency in cash by 29 percent from January through June 2023 compared to the same period in 2022, Trend reports.
According to the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA), the volume of transactions of Azerbaijani banks for the purchase and sale of foreign currency in cash amounted to $1.8 billion in the specified period.
According to the review, the share of the US dollar in these operations was 84 percent.
In addition, the non-cash foreign exchange market of Azerbaijan amounted to $13.4 billion from January through June, which is 8.2 percent less than in the same period of 2022. Of the total volume of transactions, 79.5 percent came from the US dollar, 20.5 percent from other currencies.
According to the CBA, 80 percent of non-cash transactions occurred on the interbank foreign exchange market, 20 percent - on the interbank foreign exchange market from January through June 2023.
Moreover, 97.3 percent of transactions on the interbank foreign exchange market were conducted in dollars during the first half of the year. The volume of transactions amounted to $2.7 billion in the reporting period (a decline of 35.7 percent compared to the period from January through June 2022).
According to the CBA, the turnover of foreign exchange transactions in the interbank foreign exchange market was formed mainly due to operations on the Bloomberg trading platform.
Furthermore, the volume of foreign exchange transactions in the interbank foreign exchange market amounted to $10.7 billion (an increase of 1.9 percent), of which 75 percent of transactions were in US dollars. Foreign exchange transactions in the interbank foreign exchange market by legal entities amounted to 93.2 percent.
In general, Azerbaijani banks have increased operations for the purchase and sale of foreign currency in cash by 27 percent in 2022 compared to 2021 ($5.1 billion).