BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 22
By Eldar Janashvili – Trend:
Amid the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Azerbaijan's Visa company’s primary tasks are ensuring the safety and protection of employees and the full support of partners around the world, a source in the company told Trend.
Supporting the stable functioning of the payment ecosystem for all its participants and consumers around the world at a consistently high level is also among priorities of the company, said the source.
“The company is ready for new realities and is able to maintain business continuity in various scenarios. In particular, together with its partners, Visa is ready to support authorization in the conditions of the issuer's inaccessibility, to provide a higher degree of approval of operations in electronic trade as transaction activity in the online environment increases. Moreover, the company is also ready to offer emergency assistance to their card holders if necessary,” the source in the company noted.
“During the pandemic period, Visa recommends issuing banks not refuse to conduct operations on the basis of the expired card, because in this situation, banks may experience difficulties associated with the timely reissue and delivery of cards to their customers. To check the possibility of conducting operations via that card, Visa card holders must contact the bank that issued the card,” added the source.
“The company recommends issuing banks also to be sure that the bank’s processing has the correct settings. This step was taken in order to ensure uninterrupted payment by Visa card for all holders in Azerbaijan,” the source in the Visa said.
"In a number of countries in the CIS region and Southeast Europe, we have launched social initiatives. In Azerbaijan, together with our partner - Wolt, we launched a free shipping campaign. In accordance with this program, all customers who pay for their orders with a Visa card receive a refund to their Wolt account and can use this amount as a discount on the following orders,” Visa said.
“Another example is the #EvdəQalNağdsızÖdə (#StayHomePayNon-Cash) campaign, launched by Visa together with the E-PUL e-payment platform (https://www.e-pul.az/epay/en/home), which was designed to help all the platform users quickly and safely make the necessary payments without leaving home and to contribute to the fight against the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). As part of the campaign, for each operation performed on a Visa card on the E-PUL, 0.25 manat (14 cents) were being transferred to the Coronavirus Response Fund, created under the decree of President Ilham Aliyev,” said the company.
“Moreover, Visa supported the ‘Qayğı’ (Care) program from the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA). Within a month, for each payment made online or through the POS terminal using wage and pension cards, the bank's customers received a 2-percent of cashback, of which 1 percent of earned money was returned to the client’s card account, and another percent was added to the remaining percentage. As a result, 2 percent was transferred to the Coronavirus Response Fund,” noted the source.
“We’re doing our best to adapt to the continually changing situation during the COVID-19 pandemic, and we believe that such campaigns are a great way to ensure the safety of people, giving them the opportunity to stay at home and enjoy all the benefits of non-cash payment methods,” the company said.
“While the vast majority of enterprises, regardless of industry or size, suffered from the pandemic, the small and medium-sized business sector was in a particularly difficult situation. Although these sales and service companies may be small, they play an important role in the lives of their customers, employees and partners, and their work has a significant impact on local communities and the economy,” the source emphasized.
“Together with partners, we connect more than 61 million retail outlets worldwide. This gives us a unique opportunity to help companies continue their online business during this difficult period,” added the source.
“Our current task is to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the crisis time and to provide an opportunity for the speedy recovery of this segment. Throughout the region, and particularly in Azerbaijan, together with our partner banks - Kapital Bank and PASHA Bank - we’re working to provide special tariffs and conditions that will facilitate the quickest connection of SMEs to online trading,” added the company.
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