BAKU, Azerbaijan, Oct.6
Trend:
The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) launched last week the Instant Payment System (IPS) in real mode for the aim of ensuring the opportunity of full completion of mutual transactions conducted between individuals, business, and public entities in the country in the regime 24/7 within the State Program on Expansion of Digital Payments in Azerbaijan in 2018-2020, approved by the President’s decree dated September 26, 2018, Trend reports referring to the bank.
According to CBA, from October 1, 2020, banks integrated into the IPS, as well as their internet and mobile banking services introduced the registration, inter-account transfer, and payment functions for the population. Application of the above-mentioned functions allowed to make settlements between individuals and legal entities, as well as public agencies through bank accounts via simplified identifiers (PIN, mobile phone number, e-mail).
Moreover, last week the Central Bank published statistics, according to which the volume of money supply in Azerbaijan as of September 1, 2020, reached 26.9 billion manat ($15.8 billion), which is growth by 1.4 billion manat ($820 million) or 5.6 percent compared to the early September 2019.
According to CBA, transactions worth 2.3 billion manat ($1.3 billion) were conducted with debit cards used in Azerbaijan in September 2020, which is 31.4 percent more than in the same month of 2019.
Along with the above events, last week CBA released data on insurance fees and payments in the country. Thus, the fees amounted to 528.6 million manat ($310.9 million), and payments - about 263 million manat ($154.7 million). It was reported that the insurance company Pasha Life is the leader in terms of both insurance premiums and payments.
As the Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communications (CAERC) reported, foreign citizens spent 25.6 million manat ($15.05 million) in Azerbaijan through bank cards as of the early September this year, which is 111.8 million manat ($65.7 million), or 81.4 percent less compared to the same period of last year.
Furthermore, according to CAERC, the Azerbaijani Azexport portal received export orders worth $429.4 million from January through August 2020, which is 7.5 percent more compared to the same period of 2019.
In the past week, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) forecasted the inflation rate in Azerbaijan for the current year to be at the level of 3.8 percent, which is 1 percent more than forecasted in June 2020.
Additionally, last week oil prices declined, as well as currency rate of manat in relation to the currencies of the main partner countries fluctuated.
Zeyni Jafarov
Department of Economics at Trend News Agency