E-commerce drives nearly 88% of cashless payments in Azerbaijan in October

Cashless payments in Azerbaijan rose 17.6% year-on-year in October, reaching 8.83 billion manats ($5.2 billion), the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) reported.

Of this total, 7.78 billion manats, or 88.1%, were processed through e-commerce transactions. Payments via POS terminals accounted for 1.05 billion manats, while self-service terminals handled 4 million manats.

Since the start of the year, domestic cashless card transactions have represented 67.5% of all card operations.

As of November 1, the number of payment cards in Azerbaijan stood at 21.7 million, up 1.6% from the previous month, 9.1% year-to-date, and 13.3% compared with the same period last year.

Over the past year, debit cards increased by 15.7% to 19.59 million, while credit cards fell 5.2% to 2.11 million. In October, turnover on debit cards reached 12.54 billion manats (up 16.3% year-on-year), while credit card turnover was 745 million manats (down 9.4%).

The number of ATMs grew 8.1%, and POS terminals surged 60.4%, reaching 3,516 units nationwide (1,894 in Baku) and 172,908 units (107,000 in Baku), respectively.

Azerbaijan"s banking sector works with three main types of international payment systems: card-based, electronic, and universal systems. Globally, the five most popular international card payment networks-Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Diners Club, and JCB-partner with Azerbaijani banks.