Azerbaijan, Baku, July 30 / Trend, N.Ismayilova /
Azerbaijani Royal Bank has concluded an agreement with Azerbaijan's five banks on connection to own processing center, to be launched before late 2010, the Bank's Board Chairman Samir Akbarov said.
"The processing center is under launching, we had a test mode, and within one-half months, we intend to fully launch it. The Bank also has reached an agreement involving five other Azerbaijani banks", he said.
Akbarov said the Bank cooperates with the Irish company Sysnet in establishing the processing center. The processing center will be connected to such payment systems as Visa, MasterCard, CUP, and JSP.
"Establishing a processing center is one of the main achievements of our bank, whereby the bank will provide its customers with a wider range of services," he said.
According to Akbarov, the Bank doesn't intend to hold a special dumping policy, but the opening of the processing center will make some changes in the tariff policy.
Before certification of the center Sysnet Company intends to conduct an audit of the bank in order to submit a report on the current situation of payment systems.
Sysnet CIS Business Development Manager Igor Lekgodimov said that the company has already conducted the first stage of the audit of the Bank, which determines the current situation and areas which need to be improved to bring them to the PCI DSS standards.
"The second stage is correction of all deficiencies, it is the most laborious and time-consuming work and will take from six months to a year. Royal Bank plans to complete it in a short period of time, and we expect it will take up six months," Lekgodimov said.
The third phase envisages holding an additional audit, which usually lasts about a week, review of the certificate can take several months.
"We believe that by late 2010 or in the first quarter of 2011 we will be able to issue a certificate to Royal Bank", he said.
Today, Royal Bank has issued 21,000 plastic cards. Business - the Bank's plan aims at increasing their numbers to 200,00-300,000 units in the next 2-3 years.
RoyalBank was established Aug.2, 1993 as a joint commercial bank "OZ Bank". Subsequently, the Bank's name was changed and now it is called RoyalBank.
Today, Azerbaijan has four processing center - Azericard, MilliKart, TexKart and center KapitalBank.