On November 29, the international payment system Visa International congratulated the member-banks on issuing 1 mln Visa cards in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan became the first country in Caucasus exceeding the range of 1 million, Trend reports.
According to the First Vice President of the Visa CEMEA, Lu Naumovski, Azerbaijan enters the five of the counties most actively developing the market of Visa payment cards, among the CIS countries. Since September 2003, the Azerbaijani Visa member-banks have increased the number of the Visa cards by 48 times and this makes a significant contribution to the development of the economy, Naumovski said.
According to the information of the Visa, at the end of the 3rd quarter of 2006, the amount of the finances spent by the population of Azerbaijan in the trade has increased by 194% as comprised with the same period of 2005. At present, more than thousand trade enterprises and 952 cash machines serve in Azerbaijan.
The regional manager of the Visa for CIS countries Svetlana Georbelidze spoke about the advantages and opportunities of the Visa cards.
Today 600,000 social cards have already been issued in Azerbaijan on base of Visa Electron cards and this allows the State to optimize the payment of the social allowances. The Visa member-banks actively work on the application of the credit and bonus products of Visa, which meets the demands of various layers of population. Visa will provide all kind of assistance in developing these and other projects, she said.