OREANDA-NEWS. November 14, 2012. The first bank card in Azerbaijan, issued by the International Bank of Azerbaijan, was released on 21 October 1997 by processing company AzeriCard, reported the press-centre of IBA.    

In its special report the IBA reminds that national leader Heydar Aliyev became the holder of the first national plastic card.

"The first processing center in Azerbaijan - company AzeriCard, founded by the IBA, has conducted a great job during the years of its activity," the Bank said.

Established in 1996, a year later the center passed large-scale certification of the Safety Department of EUROPAY International (MasterCard) and was recognized as complying with all the standards of international payment systems and was ready to serve all bank cards in the Caucasus region and Central Asia. In another year, with AzeriCard’s help it was conducted certification of Rabitabank, Most-Bank Azerbaijan (now Bank Standard), Azerdemiryolbank (DemirBank), Azerigazbank (AG Bank) and other Azerbaijani banks and foreign bank ABN Amro Bank, Uzbekistan in VISA and Europay International for issue and receipt of cards of these payment systems.

"AzeriCard has installed advanced system on card transactions and payments. Features of the system are based on the most advanced Oracle database system that allows any type of operations, both international and domestic. This system cooperates with international payment systems MasterCard, Visa, American Express and Diners Club. Any of the banks connected to AzeriCard are able to take advantage of these types,” it was informed.

New technologies and projects, such as "Cash by Code", "Cash In", "Cash to any Card", "VISA Personal Payments", "PIN Set", "PIN Activation" and "GPRS ATM modem" is far from complete list of services and products offered by AzeriCard.

"And 15 years later AzeriCard continues to be the largest processing center in Azerbaijan. At the moment the center processes 30 banks, both in Azerbaijan and abroad, of which 28 are members of the international payment systems. Presently, the AzeriCard system serves about 2 million bank cards, 1,600 cash machines and approximately 30,000 POS terminals," it was reported.