BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 21. Visa is actively working on the next stage of development of the international payments system in Azerbaijan, Cristina Doros, Vice President and Regional Manager for Visa in Central Asia and Azerbaijan, told Trend in an exclusive interview.
“The B2B Connect project has become significant for the country as it was the first launch in the regions of Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. The experience of Kapital Bank, which launched the product first, turned out to be very interesting for the rest of the participants of the banking system in Azerbaijan. We have seven banks in Azerbaijan alone that have launched this platform, and more banks are working on it. Besides the existing payment solutions, we are actively working on the next stage of development of the international payment system,” she said.
According to Christina Doros, Visa has already implemented the first part – introducing the B2B Connect platform, which serves payments for legal entities, mainly for medium and large companies. “As a rule, companies make these payments for relatively large amounts. However, we understand that there is a huge need for international payments not only for legal entities but also for individuals. Individuals can also transfer money to friends, colleagues, acquaintances, children, and family abroad, as well as do business,” she emphasized.
Cristina Doros also noted that to make the solution for cross-border transfers comprehensive and complete, Visa is working on the implementation of the Visa Direct to Account (VDA) solution. “This is an opportunity to transfer funds to accounts abroad, even not necessarily to a card, but just to accounts. Visa provides a convenient, secure, and fast solution for almost any purpose of transferring money abroad. There is B2B Connect for legal entities, and for those who transfer from card to card, there is a Visa Direct platform, which allows you to make transfers to the card number. The third direction is transfer from card to accounts. The fourth direction – from cards to wallets – is also in development. All these services together create a full-fledged platform of international transfers, satisfying all needs,” she concluded.
According to Cristina Doros, Visa’s relations with Azerbaijani banks are strengthening and expanding. “Of course, banks are our main partners in the development and implementation of innovative solutions. We cooperate with all banks in Azerbaijan and we are very happy that year by year this cooperation only strengthens and expands. Earlier, perhaps, we focused on narrower areas – cards, card products, technologies – but now Visa cooperates with banks much wider, in different areas. This includes marketing, consulting services, and what we call “managed services” – work that we do practically on behalf of the bank. We develop a project together, and then the Visa team implements a certain part of the work for a particular partner. The cooperation will only expand, and we are sincerely happy about it,” she said.
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