Azerbaijan, Baku, July 16 /Trend A.Akhundov/
According to the Azerbaijan AtaBank, the number and volume of transactions using plastic cards has more than doubled during the past two months and looks set to continue to increase, deputy chairman of the board Museib Aliyev told Trend.
"The number of operations in May-June almost tripled compared to the first three months of the year, while sales for them had more than doubled," Aliyev said.
He noted that today, the bank has established more than 10,000 POS-terminals of which more than 80 per cent were installed in 2012. The bank has the potential to increase their number in accordance with the increasing demand of clients.
"AtaBank installs POS-terminals in order to expand cashless payments completely at their own expense without any cost to the business, but commission is paid in the course of the operational process and most of the funds for the maintenance of accounts fall on the processing centre. In general, these rates are normal for business," Aliyev said.
He noted that today there are over 20,000 active cards of AtaBank, of which more than 2000 are credit ones.
"An increase in the number of POS-terminals does not mean a growth in the number of cards as you can use any bank card in POS-terminals. For the most part this leads to an increase in the number and volume of transactions on them. However, along with that we are through the expansion of cooperation with enterprises and other measures to increase the number of cards, especially credit and salary," Aliyev said.
He added that the bank is working on a number of products with plastic cards.
"We think of offering a new product - a business card that will allow entrepreneurs to make all their transactions without coming to the bank. We also plan to begin the use of bonus cards in cooperation with retail chains," Aliyev said.
AtaBank has been successfully operating since 1993. It is one of the largest commercial banks in Azerbaijan. The main shareholder is AtaHolding, which owns 76 per cent of its shares.
Official exchange rate on July 16 is 0.7855 AZN/USD