"Azerbaijani banking sector began to apply the innovation technologies before the pandemic, and widely spread of the pandemic accelerated the digitalization. The pandemic increased the confidence of the people in cloud technologies and artificial intelligence solutions," Director General of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan Farid Osmanov said at an online conference on the Role of financial institutions in the development of the digital ecosystem.
According to him, citizen and business circles have already started to use internet solutions widely: “According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the number of those using digital payment tools increased by 21% year-on-year.”
In Azerbaijan, compared to the end of 2019, the number of accounts in the banks and customer payments respectively increased by 16% and 53% at the end of 2020. Some 75% of the number and 62% of the volume of transfers in the current accounts were carried out through internet banking. In other words, internet or mobile banking constituted AZN 62 of every AZN 100.
He noted that digitalization of the banking sector also solves some problems: “One of them is an increase of access to the financial services and expansion of financial intensity.
According to the World Bank, 1.7 billion people still don’t have a bank account.”