The International Payment System Visa International marked on 27 October the anniversary in Azerbaijan - the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) issued 500,000 Visa cards. According to the Visa International regional manager on CIS Svetlana Georbelidze, the figure has been recorded by the results of the first half-year of 2005,Trend reports. For today this indicator is some 650,000 cards. IBA, the Visa principal member, supports in acquiring the associated membership to 11 more banks of the country. There are about 1500 acceptance points of the Visa cards throughout the country.
The head of the AzeriCard processing company Elmar Sadyhov noted, over 1 million Visa cards are operating in Azerbaijan.
According to Georbelidze, the circulation on Visa cards n Azerbaijan is some $300 million, which is three times more of the same index of the last year. And Azerbaijan takes the fifth place in CIS after Russia (20 million cards), Ukraine (10 million), Kazakhstan (2 million), Belarus (1 million).
