BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 29. A total of 38.4 million transactions worth 1.1 billion manat ($647.1 million) were made through Apple Pay, and 20.5 million transactions worth 420 million manat ($247.1 million) were made through Google Pay from January through August 2023, the Chief Specialist of the Department of Payment Systems and Settlements of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, Khayaladdin Taghiyev told Trend.
According to Taghiyev, interest in payments made using mobile devices in Azerbaijan has increased significantly in a short period of time.
"In recent years, the high growth rates of non-cash payments in the country, especially contactless transactions, indicate the growing interest of the country's population in non-cash payments and innovative payment solutions. Therefore, the number of payment cards in circulation increased by 20.2 percent (to 15.7 million) compared to the same period last year, and the volume of non-cash payments doubled as of September 1, 2023 (to 28.8 billion manat, or $16.9 billion),” said Taghiyev.
“Compared to the corresponding period last year, the share of non-cash circulation in internal card payments increased by 12.4 percentage points (to 53.7 percent). The volume of payments made through POS terminals increased by 75.8 percent year-on-year and reached 6.1 billion manat ($3.6 billion)," he said.
Tagiyev also said that compared to the same period last year, the number of contactless payment cards increased by 26.8 percent (11.7 million), the number of domestic contactless payments exceeded the indicator of the same period in 2022 by 2.3 times, and the volume increased by 93.2 percent.
