BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 29. Azerbaijan Banks Association (ABA) announced this week hosting of the VII International Banking Forum (IBF 2023) in Baku on November 1-2, Trend reports.
The event will be held within the framework of cooperation with the international payment system Mastercard with the support of ABA, the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA), as well as the Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communications.
The forum will discuss such topics as "reliable, safe, and sustainable banking sector", "spreading opportunities: neobanks and financial ecosystems," "new frontiers of self-service", "financial technologies and trends", "evolution of payments: minimum contact", "opportunities for proactive fraud prevention in the digital financial ecosystem" and "remittances in Southeast Europe, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia regions".
Besides, acting chairman of the board of the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) Administration Temirlan Mukhanbetzhanov said at the Fintech Forum in Baku this week that AIFC is interested in the use of its platform by Azerbaijani companies.
"We are interested in Azerbaijani companies using our platform in order to attract financing. Such an opportunity exists," he emphasized.
Furthermore, Managing Director at United Payment Azerbaijan company Edgar Abdullayev said during the Fintech Forum that monthly transfers to Azerbaijan through the Turkish ‘Turan Teknoloji Anonim Sirketi’ (Turan) payment system amount to approximately 9.5 million liras ($340,000).
He stated that the Turan payment system currently has over 120,000 active users and that over 700,000 transactions are processed monthly.
"Turan aims to increase this figure to 10 million liras ($360,000) in October and to 37.5 million liras ($1.3 million) per month in 2024," Abdullayev noted.
He stated that United Payment company is awaiting a license in compliance with Azerbaijan's "On payment services and payment systems" law.
The data in the statistical bulletin of the CBA published this week showed that the net profit of Azerbaijan's banks amounted to 832.9 million manat ($489.9 million) from January through September 2023 (21.9 percent up year-on-year).
Besides, following the data from the CBA, Azerbaijani banks' loan portfolio grew by 16.31 percent year-on-year and reached 22.28 billion manat ($13.1 billion, and the number of ATMs (automated teller machines) in Azerbaijan amounted to 3,119 (an increase of 1.7 percent compared to the end of 2022) as of September 30, 2023.
The data from the CBA also showed that number of POS (point of sale) terminals installed in trade and services facilities in Azerbaijan amounted to 81,799 (an increase of 2.5 percent compared to the end of 2022). Of these, 55,362 were installed in Baku and 26,437 in other cities and districts of Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, according to the mentioned data, turnover of payment cards through ATMs and POS terminals in Azerbaijan increased by 2.6 billion manat ($1.52 billion), or 50.58 percent, from 5.1 billion ($2.9 billion) to 7.8 billion manat ($4.5 billion) as of October 1, 2023, and the total volume of bank deposits of Azerbaijan's population increased by 1.4 billion manat or $823.5 million (13.18 percent) year-on-year as of September 30, 2023, from 11.2 billion ($6.5 billion) to 12.5 billion manat ($7.3 billion).
Additionally, the data from the State Service on Property Issues under the Ministry of Economy of Azerbaijan were also published this week showing that the state budget of Azerbaijan received 95.5 million manat ($56.18 million) from the privatization of state property from January through September 2023.
