On 7 July the news outlet “Business Turkmenistan” with reference to the Department of the Banking Automation of the Central Bank reported that the volume of non-cash circulation in Turkmenistan for January-May 2002 amounted to almost 5 billion manats.
The entire volume of non-cash payments paid via digital terminals throughout this period is 4,616,165,786 manats.
The total volume of non-cash transactions made through “Electronic trade” system over the course of five months amounted to 225,085,088 manats; “Mobile bank” 4,335,862 manats; “Internet bank” 514,823 manats, Halkbank terminal 11,185,551 manats and ATMs 95,520,874 manats.
In additions, as of 1 June the total amount of deposits in state-run credit institutions was 82,458,000 manats.
In January-August 2020 the volume of non-cash transactions made through ATMs, terminals, the systems of “Internet bank”, “Mobile bank” and “Electronic trade” was 4,89 billion manats.
According to the Central Bank statistics, as of summer 2020 4,288,600 bank cards were used across Turkmenistan.
In November 2019 state-run shops imposed the requirement of non-cash payments.This was done to reduce cash turnover which resulted in regular queues in front of ATMs.
Following this, residents started obtaining bank cards en masse.
In the spring of 2020 President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov called for introducing non-cash transactions several times.
In the summer of 2020 ATMD outside the bank buildings in Ashgabat were dismantled “to address the problem of queues”. From now on they are located only in offices of organizations.
Nevertheless, the problem of the shortage of cash in ATM is still wide-spread and all-pervasive. Residents of Turkmenistan do not trust banks and try to immediately cash salaries, retirement benefits and other allowances once they are deposited to their bank cards.
In early June correspondents of “Chronicles of Turkmenistan” reported that Ashgabat was again experiencing a shortage of cash.
Queues are still formed in front of banks and the limit for cash withdrawals is 800 manats.Cards can be used only in major shopping centres and supermarkets.
Because prices are high there, residents prefer to go shopping in markets and small privately-owned stores which accept only cash.Shop assistants of state-run stores also accept only cash payments because PDQ terminals are allegedly out of service.The post Turkmen authorities failed to increase the volume of non-cash transactions in the past two years first appeared on Chronicles of Turkmenistan.