Two banks to provide pensions

Pensions in Azerbaijan will be paid through the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) and Kapital Bank, Azerbaijani State Social Protection Fund (SSPF) Chairman Salim Muslimov told reporters on Tuesday.

"The tender was open to all credit institutions, but, unfortunately, interest was shown only by five banks -- the IBA, Kapital Bank, Texnikabank, Xalq Bank and Demirbank," Muslimov said.

Despite the fact that Xalq Bank presented the application form and received a tender conditions, it did not submit proposals in the end.

"Demirbank doesn't have its own processing center, which is one of the conditions of tender" Muslimov said. "As a result, the tender process involved three of the banks."

Only two banks (IBA and Kapital Bank) participated in 22 lots of 69, whereas there must be at least three candidates under the terms of the tender. In this regard, the State Fund appealed to the relevant authorities for the speedy completion of this process by asking the
proposals.

The winners are already known in the remaining 47 lots and may be announced today. According to preliminary data, the lowest prices for two lots were offered by Texnikabank, the remaining 45 lots - IBA and Kapital Bank.

"Taking into account the current situation with Texnikabank, we turned to the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, and on the basis of the response we are likely to share these two lots to banks which took second place on these lots to avoid problems. Today, State Fund can not go on any risks in granting pensions" Muslimov said.

According to Muslimov, the tender affects the interests of 1.18 million pensioners.

"In the near future, Nakhchivan Department of the State Fund will hold a tender, which will cover more than 50.000 pensioners living in Nakhchivan," Muslimov said.

SSPF has announced a tender for the purchase of works on the organization of pension payments by plastic cards in February. Tender packages were opened on April 4.

The main purpose of the announcement of the tender was to increase the number of authorized banks in the payment of pensions and social benefits. At present, the distribution of pensions and social benefits in the country is held by two authorized banks - International Bank of Azerbaijan and Kapital Bank.


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