BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 24. A total of 67 percent of payment transactions carried out with payment cards in Azerbaijan this year were carried out in a cashless form as a result of the reforms, and in the past four months, e-commerce turnover within the country grew by 1.4 times compared to the same period last year, President of the Azerbaijan Banks Association (ABA) Zakir Nuriyev said at the FINTEX SUMMIT 2025 - Finance and Technologies Exhibition held in Baku today, Trend reports.
As of the end of April 2025, the total assets of the banking sector amounted to approximately 54.6 billion manat (~$32.2 billion), which is an increase of 10.9 percent compared to the same period last year.
Compared to the previous year, not only has the volume of assets grown, but the pace of asset growth has also accelerated. At the same time, the total loan portfolio of the banks increased by 14 percent over the past 12 months, reaching 28.1 billion manat (~$16.6 billion).
The growth rate of business loans remained in the double digits, standing at 11 percent. Loans issued to the real sector amounted to 15 billion manat (~$8.85 billion), covering more than 53 percent of the total loan portfolio.
The loan dollarization ratio stood at 15.2 percent, which is 3.5 percentage points lower than in the same period last year.
As of the end of April this year, the share of overdue loans in the portfolio was 1.7 percent.
During the reporting period, the total volume of bank deposits increased by 3.9 percent annually to reach 36.7 billion manat ($21.7 billion). Deposits from individuals totaled 14.5 billion manat ($8.6 billion), which is 10.1 percent higher compared to the same period last year.
In April 2025, the volume of term deposits by individuals exceeded 9.1 billion manat ($5.37 billion), reflecting an annual increase of 23.2 percent. This growth mainly came from new bank customers. In the first four months of 2025, the number of unique (term) depositors rose by 7.5 percent, or by 11,337 people, reaching a total of 161,856 individuals.
Although the deposit manatisation ratio was 41.7 percent, for individuals it stood at 33.7 percent.
The capital position of banks also strengthened, with the total equity capital of the sector increasing by 10.4 percent annually to reach 7 billion manat ($4.13 billion). In the first four months of 2025, banks generated 339.8 million manat ($200 million) in profit and 1.5 billion manat ($885 million) in interest income.
During the reporting period, the number of bank cards increased by 17 percent annually to reach 20.7 million cards. A significant part of this growth came from contactless cards. Overall, 81 percent of payment cards in the country support contactless payments, and over 95 percent of payments made through POS terminals are contactless.
In 2025, 67.1 percent of all operations carried out with payment cards were cashless transactions, representing a five percentage point increase. The volume of cashless transactions made using cards in the first four months of 2025 totaled approximately 30 billion manat ($17.7 billion), which is an increase of 33.8 percent compared to the same period last year.
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