BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 14. In accordance with the "Digital Payments Strategy of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan for 2021-2023", the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) is aimed at increasing the share of non-cash payments through cards within the country to 48 percent, Trend reports via the CBA.
According to the CBA's review of payment systems, this rate totaled 43.2 percent in 2022.
In addition, as part of this strategy, it is planned to increase the share of contactless payment cards in the market to 75 percent.
The volume of non-cash payments in Azerbaijan amounted to 58.56 billion manat ($34.45 billion) in 2022, which is 21.1 billion manat ($12.4 billion) or 56.26 percent more than in 2021. A total of 562.1 million transactions worth 54.2 billion manat ($31.8 billion) were carried out through debit cards (an increase of 54.9 percent), and 80.8 million transactions worth 4.3 billion manat ($2.5 billion) through credit cards (an increase of 78.3 percent).
The number of payment cards in circulation equaled 13.2 million as of January 1, 2023, which is 20.1 percent more than in 2021. The growth of debit cards was 18.7 percent, and that of credit cards - 29.4 percent.