Zakir Nuriyev: Banks' assets near $29B

As at the end of 2023, the assets of Azerbaijani banks amounted to 49.2 billion manats ($28.92 billion), up 4.5% from a year earlier, Zakir Nuriyev, chairman of the Azerbaijan Banks Association (ABA) Public Union, said at the Azerbaijan Financial Forum held in Baku, themed "Accomplishments and Challenges," Report informs.

"In particular, last year, banks' provision of crediting in the economy increased by 18.3% to 23.2 billion manats ($13.64 billion). The dollarization rate of loans is 18.8%," he said.

In addition, the ABA chairman said that at the beginning of this year, the deposits in banks made up 34.6 billion manats ($20.34 billion), up 2.3% from the previous year: "Savings increased by 9.2% to 12.5 billion manats ($7.34 billion). Although the coefficient of dollarization of deposits was 36.4%, this limit for the savings of individuals was 33.4%. These are 10.7 percentage points and 6.4 percentage points less than the same period in 2023, respectively."

According to Nuriyev, the capital position of banks has also strengthened during the year. The total capital of the sector grew by 8.4% to 6.1 billion manats ($3.58 billion).

The chairman of the ABA also noted that in 2023, banks made a profit of 1.1 billion manats ($640 million), 17% more than in 2022.

"In the reporting period, the number of bank cards increased by 23% to 16.6 million. Most of this increase was due to contactless cards. Thus, in the last 12 months, the number of cards in the country increased by 3.1 million units, of which 95.4% are contactless payment cards. In general, more than 76% of payment cards support contactless payments. Over 91% of payments with POS terminals fall to the share of contactless payments," he said.