BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 19. The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) plans to take the first step towards introducing uniform open banking standards in the country, the head of the bank's Financial Technologies and Innovations Department, Sahib Hasanov, said at the 9th International Banking Forum, Trend reports.
According to Trend, this was announced today at the IX International Banking Forum by Sahib Hasanov, Head of the CBA's Special Regulation Department.
According to him, the introduction of uniform standards will increase transparency and strengthen competition in the financial sector. “In addition to uniform standards, a unified infrastructure has been created through which all organisations can use open banking services,” he said.
The head of the department also touched on the concept of a technical sandbox, noting that when developing innovative products, organisations will be able to use demonstration APIs within the framework of the CBA's special regulatory regime. This approach is used in international practice, including in Georgia. Thanks to the sandbox, unlicensed organisations can test their products on synthetic data and subsequently integrate them into the real open banking platform.
He noted that the current focus is on expanding account extension and payment intermediation services, and the introduction of a technical “sandbox” will become relevant after a certain stage.
Hasanov emphasized that data protection is one of the fundamental principles of open banking. Both parties—the provider and the user of the data—must identify the customer, and data can only be exchanged with the customer's consent and using strong authentication. Data exchange via the Central Bank's technical infrastructure is fully encrypted.
“The Central Bank has created a level playing field for fintech companies and banks so that they can use existing functions and introduce new and innovative products in accordance with the requirements,” Sahib Hasanov added.