BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 25. The number of payment cards in circulation through the systems of banks and Azerpost LLC increased by 356,000 units by the end of September compared to the previous month and amounted to 18.9 million units.
The data obtained by Trend from the country's Central Bank shows that this indicator increased by 18.7 percent compared to the corresponding period of last year.
According to the information, the growth of payment cards amounted to 20.6 percent for debit cards and 6.3 percent for credit cards.
The growth of payment cards had a positive impact on the volume of non-cash payments. Thus, for a month, the volume of non-cash transactions within the country increased by 1.6 times compared to the corresponding period of the last year.
The volume of non-cash payments inside the country made through payment cards amounted to 7.1 million manat ($4.1 million) in September of the current year. E-commerce accounted for 6.06 million manat ($3.5 million) of non-cash payments. Of the remaining amount, 1.07 million manat ($629,000) payments were made through POS terminals and 7.7 million manat ($4.5 million) through self-service terminals.
To note, dynamic growth is observed in the banks and payment services networks of “Azerpost” LLC. Thus, compared to the end of September last year, the number of ATMs increased by three percent, and the number of POS terminals by 26.5 percent.