Azerbaijan, Baku, May 20 /Trend, H.Veliyev/
Azerpocht state postal operator of Azerbaijan will join the international payment system MasterCard in the next months, head of the postal communication department of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies of Azerbaijan, chairman of the postal commission of the Regional Commonwealth in the field of Communications, Novruz Mammadov, told Trend.
According to Mammadov, the ongoing negotiations with MasterCard are in the final stage, and an agreement should be signed within one month.
Connecting to MasterCard will allow the postal operator to start issuing international payment cards. In parallel, negotiations are also conducted with the system of Visa International, which is the second phase of work conducted in this regard, said Mammadov.
Issuance of payment cards will allow the postal operator to issue pensions in the future.
"We see this type of users as potential customers. But to issue pensions, it needs to have a network of ATMs, since it will be uneconomical if the postal operator will use the equipment of other banks. Currently, the operator has set about six ATMs in Baku. Until the end of year, there are plans to install at least one ATM in each of the central district office of Azerpoct," Mammadov said.
He said postal operator will need more than one million manat to equip at least one ATM in every central district branch (of which number is about 70 units).
Going into this segment of the financial market, Azerpocht will seriously compete with players of the banking market. Today 44 banks operate in Azerbaijani banking market, with 644 branches, while the number of post offices of Azerpocht exceeds 1,600.