BAKU, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
Twofold increase of the value of non-cash money transactions in observed in Kazakhstan based on results of first nine months of 2019, Trend reports with reference to Kazakhstan’s National bank.
According to the information, the number of plastic cards in circulation has been rapidly increasing in Kazakhstan leading to the corresponding increase of the volume of non-cash payments.
As noted by the Head of bank’s Payment Systems Department Erlan Ashykbekov said, total number of issued plastic cards in Kazakhstan amounted to 30.6 million cards as of October 1, 2019, which is 43 percent more compared to the same period of the previous year.
“Total volume of non-cash payments and money transfers via plastic cards increased by over two times during first nine months of 2019 compared to the same period of 2018 and equaled 8.9 trillion tenge (approximately $22.8 billion),” Ashykbekov said.
He further added that the main share of non-cash payments was implemented via online banking services.
“The number of users of online services amounts to nearly 18 million registered users, 34 percent of which do online operations on a regular basis, which confirms the demand for remote digital banking services among the citizens. Daily number of transfers implemented online exceeds 1.3 million transfers worth over 21 billion tenge (approximately $53.9 billion),” the report said.
Kazakh payment system market is represented by a number of both national and international payment systems. As of August 2019, for the most part Kazakhs made transactions using KoronaPay (Zolotaya Korona) payment system, Western Union and Faster.
Kazakhstan has a two-tier banking system. The National Bank of Kazakhstan is the central bank of Kazakhstan and presents the upper (first) tier of the banking system of Kazakhstan. All other banks present lower (second) tier of the banking system, excluding the Development Bank of Kazakhstan, that has peculiar legal status.
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