By totals of 1Q2006, issued plastic cards in Azerbaijan totaled 1.1mln, Trend reports with reference to officials of Azerikard processing center. Most of these cards are social and salary cards issued by International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) and Kapitalbank. First largest card issuer is IBA that issued in total 750k cards as of April 1, second best is Kapitalbank with 300k. Third place is shared between Azerigazbank and Texnikabank that issued over 20k cards. This year Texnikabank gained traction in card market and issued some 10k cards in March alone.
By quantity Visa cards dominate with 830k, MasterCard 250k, and local cards total 20k. Azerikards experts say number of local cards reduces alongside the rise of number of international cards issuers. There are some 740k pension cards in circulation; 500k of them are issued by International Bank. During pension issue days card turnover exceed 100k transactions. Operations through POS-terminals with Visa cards total some 4k, and those with MasterCard 1.5 to 2k.
Total turnover on cards amounted $200-210mln in Q1. During the reported period, 2.26mln operations in total mount of $152.369mln were made using Visa cards. The center experts forecast growth of card turnover in Q2 up to $250mln and in Q3 to $300-350mln. First place by turnover is secured for IBA, Standard bank goes close second, followed by Azerigazbank, Kapitalbank, bank Respublika, Bank Of Baku.
At the moment 30 banks-issuers of Azerbaijan are serviced by Azerikard center.