There are reports that some commercial banks in Azerbaijan refuse to exchange US dollars into manat issued in 2006 or before.
Publika.az reports that the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) issued a statement to Trend regarding the matter, stating that the Central Bank and commercial banks are not under any obligation to accept or exchange US dollars as they are not the issuer.
“Commercial banks are free to make decisions on the execution of these operations,” the institution said.
“Kapitalbank”, one of the country’s leading banks, said that the bank’s branches also accept old dollar bills.
According to the information provided by “Unibank”, the branches of the bank accept dollar bills issued before 2006 for any banking transactions without any problems.
Regarding the issue, the economist expert Khalid Karimli said that currency exchange is the banks’ own business:
“Banks are not obliged to provide this service. Because the dollar is a popular currency in Azerbaijan, people find it strange that they do not change it into manats. However, some banks refuse to change lira and ruble. Banks may not accept dollars from 2006 and before. Because the dollar is our national currency. It is not our currency, but banks cannot refuse to exchange the manat.
Any commercial bank may not accept the damaged manat. But the Central Bank is obliged to exchange such money.”
It should be noted that bank deposits of the population in Azerbaijan (including funds of individuals engaged in individual entrepreneurial activity) increased by 8.2 percent in January-September 2023 (reached 12.705 billion manats). Bank deposits of the population in foreign currency decreased by 3.3 percent (4 billion 453 million manats) and accounted for 35.1 percent of all deposits of the population (at the end of 2022, the specific weight of deposits in foreign currency was 39.2 percent).
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