Azerbaijani minister: cashless payments contribute to economic transparency

  14 June 2019    Read: 1226
 Azerbaijani minister: cashless payments contribute to economic transparency

Non-cash payments contribute to the transparency of the economy, and the Ministry of Taxes works very closely in this area with partners, Azerbaijani Minister of Taxes Mikayil Jabbarov said at today's meeting of the Azerbaijani Parliament, AzVision.az reports.

The minister noted a decline in the share of money supply in December 2018 by 51.9 percent compared to the same period in 2017, when the figure was 60.1 percent.

“I think this clearly shows the direction of the dynamics in the payments market,” the minister added.

At the same time, there is a decrease in the number of POS terminals by 16 percent compared with 2016. If in 2016 the number of registered POS-terminals reached 80,301, then as of June 1 of this year this figure was 67,032. However, over 6.7 million payment cards are currently in circulation.

“The main question is which of the market participants is most beneficial to the owners of retail outlets, banks or citizens,” the minister noted.

According to him, attention needs to be paid to a number of factors in order to answer this question. This includes determining the sizes of commissions. Currently, in Azerbaijan, the size of the commission when paying by POS-terminals varies in the range of 1.29-2.37 percent. For comparison, this figure stands at 1.5-2 percent in neighboring Georgia, 1.5-2 percent in the UK, 2-2.5 percent in Italy, and 2-3 percent in Russia.

The minister noted that Azerbaijan’s expenses on commission and tariffs are comparatively lower than in other countries, and the government does not affect this in any way.


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