Azerbaijan, Baku, March 2, / Trend , N. Ismailova/
Texkart, a processing center of Azerbaijan, started its operation on Feb. 26, Texnikabank reported in a statement on Tuesday.
The processing center has so far issued around 1,000 MasterCard plastic cards. As far as MasterCard payments are made in euros, the processing center started issuing exactly these payment cards. The next issue covers local, debt and credit Visa cards, which will be issued over next 40 days.
Azerbaijani bank Texnikabank established processing center Texkart in 2007. Initially, the company will be specialized in the provision of services to Texnikabank only, but later on will start providing services to other banks as well. The company's statutory capital totals 1 million manat.
By now, the bank has issued 49,200 cards, including 1,000 MasterCard cards. The rest cards of the bank continue to be serviced at processing center Azericard.
The number of these cards is likely to increase by 20% in 2010 at the expense of new products and subsequently increase up to 90,000 in 2011.
Texnikabank has become the second private bank in Azerbaijan (after Unibank) and the fourth bank in Azerbaijan (the International Bank of Azerbaijan and Kapital Bank acquired this status earlier) to have received permission for the acquiring of Visa International.
This has allowed Texnikabank to independently conclude agreements with trading facilities over placement of POS-terminals. The receipt of acquiring will help develop the bank's card business and, thanks to this, the bank will receive the opportunity to attract corporate clients specialized in the fields of trade and provision of services.
Currently, there are three processing centers operational in the country. They are Azericard, which is 100% owned by the International Bank of Azerbaijan, Milli Kart, which is owned by 18 profit banks and the EBRD, and Kapital Bank's processing center.
The official exchange rate on March 2 is 0.8034 AZN/USD.