BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 4. Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Digital Development and Transport announced this week the increase of the average speed of fixed broadband internet by 50 percent compared to last year in the country, Trend reports.
According to the ministry, the average internet speed in January of this year amounted to 26.3 Mbps, whilst in the same month last year, the speed was 17.5 Mbps.
The measurements were carried out on the basis of the world-famous methodology Speedtest Global Index by Ookla.
Besides, the Visa company noted this week that women leaders from Azerbaijan and the entire region of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus are gradually switching to e-commerce and using convenient and reliable digital payments.
According to the company, 'increase in income' (41 percent) and 'making a dream come true' (24 percent) are the main motivation of Azerbaijani women entrepreneurs to run businesses.
The company said that female entrepreneurs consider raising capital (45 percent) and high competition (24 percent) the biggest problems when starting and running a business.
At the same time, some women entrepreneurs are concerned that they 'will not be able to pay enough attention to the family' (27 percent), or 'will fail' (26 percent), the company noted.
The company also noted that the rates of non-cash payments in Azerbaijan are 50 percent, while cash payments are 41 percent.
Customers mostly pay by card (46 percent versus 38 percent who pay in cash). And half of Azerbaijani women entrepreneurs said that they prefer to pay for their goods and services by card, Visa added.
It was also noted this week that more than half of the bank card transactions in the Azerbaijani market fell on the Visa international payment company, which was contributed by the implementation of creative initiatives that guaranteed the simplicity and security of using cards.
Visa's share of the total volume of transactions by the end of 2022 was about 60.5 percent.
Senior Director, Regional Manager of Visa in Azerbaijan Nurlan Hajiyev said this week that the Visa international payment system sees huge potential in the Azerbaijani market for innovations.
He noted that work is underway to increase the number of banks connected to tokenization, and currently, some 11 banks are connected to it.
According to him, the introduction of innovations has allowed to implement a large number of projects, including launching Apple Pay in 2021 and Google Pay in 2022.
Moreover, Azerbaijan became the first country in the EMEA region (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) to launch the first B2B Connect, Hajiyev added.
Hajiyev noted that the number of banks supporting Apple Pay and Google Pay increased in 2022.
The senior manager also mentioned that Visa introduced Mobility & Transit Transaction technology in Azerbaijan for the first time (among EMEA countries).
This technology offers a range of flexible fares for passengers (including fixed fares), distance- and time-based fares, multimodal fares, as well as features such as fare restrictions, benefits, and refunds for delays.