BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 28. The number of payment cards in circulation in the banking and Azerpost LLC system of Azerbaijan as of the end of March 2025 increased by 221,000 cards compared to the previous month, reaching a total of 20.46 million cards.
Data obtained by Trend from the Central Bank (CBA) marks this figure's year-on-year increase by 17.4 percent.
The increase in payment cards was 20.1 percent for debit cards and 0.01 percent for credit cards.
The growth of payment cards has positively impacted the volume of cashless payments. Specifically, the volume of domestic cashless transactions during the month grew by 1.2 times compared to the same period last year.
In March 2025, the volume of domestic cashless payments made via cards amounted to 6.6 million manat ($3.9 million). Of the executed cashless payments, 57 million manat ($33.6 million) accounted for e-commerce. The remaining amount of 890 million manat ($523.5 million) was processed through POS terminals, and 2.5 million manat ($1.5 million) was processed through self-service terminals.
Since the beginning of the year, cashless domestic operations with payment cards have accounted for 67 percent of domestic card transactions.
A dynamic growth is observed in the payment service networks of banks and Azerpost MMC. Specifically, compared to the end of March last year, the number of ATMs increased by seven percent, and the number of POS terminals - by 38 percent.
