BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 24
By Klavdiya Romakayeva - Trend:
The largest number of trade enterprises that accept payment cards for payment is registered in Kazakhstan’s Almaty, amounting to 51,400, Trend reports with reference to finprom.kz.
According to the results of the first half of this year, the number of enterprises in Kazakhstan accepting payment cards for payment has already amounted to 210,800 - more than twice as compared to the corresponding period last year (101,500).
The number of POS terminals also showed a noticeable increase (+86.9 percent per year), which also indicates the transition of enterprises to modern payment methods, which are gaining more and more popularity during the pandemic.
In general, the transition of the business to the online format had a positive effect on business activity: in March of this year, the business activity index for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic went into the positive zone.
In the regional context, the largest number of trade enterprises accepting payment cards for payment is registered in Almaty (51,400), Nur-Sultan (34,800), and Karaganda region (16,600).
It is reported that entrepreneurs receive support for the transition to cashless payments from the second-tier banks of Kazakhstan, the country's financial regulator, as well as from international payment systems. Mastercard has done serious work in this direction.
So, for a painless transition of SMEs to non-cash payments, the Tap on Phone technology appeared in Kazakhstan, which allows using a smartphone as a contactless POS terminal for accepting non-cash payments. The introduction of this technology allows a business to save on the purchase of expensive POS terminals and also reduces the cost of their maintenance.
In addition, thanks to the emergence of innovative payment solutions, non-cash transactions are replacing cash turnover. Thus, in 2020, for the first time in Kazakhstan, the share of non-cash transactions in the total turnover of funds on payment cards exceeded the share of withdrawals - 68 percent versus 32 percent. And according to the results of 1H2021, the share of non-cash payments amounted to 75.4 percent.
In general, following the results of six months of this year, the volume of non-cash payments increased 2.4 times over the year and amounted to almost 30 trillion tenge/$70 billion (a year earlier - 12.4 trillion tenge/$29 billion). At the same time, 82.7 percent of payments were made online via the Internet and a mobile phone.
Moreover, the sector expects a new round of growth. To further popularize non-cash payments Fintech Hub, the AIFC, in partnership with Mastercard and the Internet Initiatives Development Fund, announced the launch of the first fintech accelerator for banks in Kazakhstan.
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