BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 14. Rumors have spread on social media about local Azerbaijani banks not accepting old-style US dollar bills (issued until 2006), Trend reports.
A number of Azerbaijani citizens, including foreigners residing in Azerbaijan, inquired Trend about the matter. The agency spoke with two of the top five banks in the country on the mentioned rumors.
Unibank said that its branches accept the US dollar bills for any banking transactions without any problems. Kapital Bank, in turn, noted that its branches also accept old-style US dollar bills.
According to expert, Ph.D. in economics Faraj Akhundov, each bank individually approaches the service of exchange of foreign currency.
"That is, each bank chooses which currency to work with, in what quantity and what services to provide with this currency. Due to the fact that the US dollar and euro are freely convertible currencies, they are very popular currencies in our country, therefore most banks provide services for working with these currencies," he told Trend.
Akhundov explained that each bank makes its own decision on whether to accept foreign currency or not, since it is not regulated by any local laws.
"The currency exchange is a service. A bank may not sell USD and not buy them either, since it is the bank's own service. However, if this is the case, this bank will soon find itself out of clients. However, it has the right not to accept US dollar bills because the USD is not the national currency of Azerbaijan. The bank may accept Azerbaijani manat but claim it doesn't have USD dollars to sell, and offer some other foreign currency. If the client doesn't want this offered currency, the deal is off," he said.
Akhundov noted that local Azerbaijani banks are obliged to accept only national currency, while the acceptance of foreign currency is at the bank's discretion.
Another economic expert, Khalid Karimli confirmed that the banks in Azerbaijan aren't obliged to provide the foreign currency exchange service, but they do so considering that the US dollar is a popular currency countrywide.
"Some banks refuse to exchange lira or ruble. Some banks may not accept US dollars made in 2006 or earlier, since the US dollar is not Azerbaijan's national currency. However, the banks cannot refuse to change the Azerbaijani manat, unless it is in extremely bad physical condition," he said.
Bank deposits of the population in Azerbaijan (including funds of individuals engaged in individual entrepreneurial activity) grew by 8.2 percent (up to 12.7 billion manat, or $7.4 billion) from January through September 2023.
These deposits in foreign currency decreased by 3.3 percent (to 4.4 billion manat, or $2.5 billion), amounting to 35.1 percent of all deposits of the population (the share of deposits in foreign currency amounted to 39.2 percent as of 2022).
As of the beginning of 2023, there were 25 banks in Azerbaijan. Later in the year, two banks - Gunay Bank and Mugan Bank got their licenses revoked.
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