Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb.29 /Trend A.Hasanov/
Azericard processing center, owned by the International Bank of Azerbaijan, expects a major expansion of the card market in 2012.
It will, however, depend on the bank's plans of issuing cards and on the customer base, Head of AzeriCard Business Development Jahangir Mammadov told Trend.
"Operations by wire transfer are growing in the country, but that doesn't mean that the number of cards will increase," Mamedov said.
The number of cards on the Azerbaijani market served by Azericard amounted to 2 million, which is equivalent to about 45 percent of the total card market in the country.
"For the development of the card market, it is necessary that traders accept cards for payment everywhere, but they are still more interested in cash. If we solve this problem, which is impossible without governmental intervention, it will be a significant breakthrough in the payment card market," Mammadov said.
Azerbaijani banks issued 4.58 million cards in January 2012 compared to 4231 thousands cards at the beginning of 2011. Some 50,953,000 card transactions worth 7.23 billion manat were performed in the country in 2011, and 46,504 thousands card transactions worth 6.056 billion manat were performed in 2010.
AzeriCard serves 30 banks both in Azerbaijan and abroad, 28 of which are members of international payment systems. Azerbaijan currently has 44 banks.
There are five processing centers in the country: Azericard, MilliKart, TexKart, RoyalCard and processing KapitalBank.
The official exchange rate is 0.7861 AZN/USD as of Feb.29.