Azerbaijan, Baku, July 16 / Trend A. Akhundov /
Azerbaijani "Ata Bank" does not exclude the possibility of creating its own processing center in the future, Deputy Chairman of the Bank Board Museib Aliyev told Trend today.
"This issue is being discussed," he said. "The strategy for the current year does not envisage this. This issue will be discussed in the future, depending on the number of cards and volume of transactions."
He said that the Azerbaijani Central Bank (CBA) does not require the creation of its own center. It recommends this to banks, which are the most active in the market of plastic cards.
"Creating a processing center is a separate business sphere," he said. "It is necessary to conduct research, special analysis to figure out the required index on the number of cards and transactions on them to establish such a center advantageously. Creating a processing center, purchasing equipment and software for it is an expensive sphere requiring investments."
He said that Ata Bank's cards are served in Azericard processing center.
Until recently, there were five processing centers - Azericard, MilliKart, TexKart, RoyalCard and processing KapitalBank in Azerbaijan. However, after structural changes, "Texnikabank" has started to carry out transactions on cards via Azericard processing center since July. Moreover, uncertainty remains with respect to the activity of RoyalCard following the CBA recent decision about liquidating Royalbank's license.
CBA earlier told Trend that several Azerbaijani banks will establish their own processing centers soon.
"The Central Bank is negotiating with several banks on this occasion, however, formal complaints have not been made yet," the CBA said.
AtaBank has been successfully operating since 1993. At present, 24 branches and offices of the bank operate in Baku and different regions of the republic. As of 2011, net assets totaled 231 million manat, credit portfolio - 147 million manat, urgent deposit portfolio - 163 million manat, total capital - 30 million manat.
The official exchange rate is 0,7855 AZN/USD on July 16.