At the inaugural meeting of the Digital Development Council, chaired by First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva, important priorities were identified in the areas of digitalisation, the development of the local innovation ecosystem and the strengthening of technological sovereignty.

The retail sector is one of the areas where this transformation is most directly experienced by citizens. The fact that cashless turnover across our member networks is approaching 70 per cent creates significant opportunities for testing and scaling local FinTech and payment solutions.

We believe that the development of AZQR and other domestic payment instruments on more favourable economic terms will help reduce business costs, expand digital payments and strengthen the national payments ecosystem.