Mastercard Data & Services to expand presence in Azerbaijan

Global payments giant Mastercard is planning to significantly expand its consulting division, Mastercard Data & Services, in Azerbaijan this year.

New York-headquartered Mastercard Data & Services is the management and data consulting arm of Mastercard, one of the world’s largest payment companies. The firm’s 3,000 consultants worldwide help financial institutions, retailers, telecom operators, travel groups and other companies with bringing their payments solutions to life.

In a press conference held last week, Mehmet Gulez, who leads business development for Mastercard Data & Services in Turkey and Azerbaijan, unveiled that the company has forged plans to ramp up its presence in Azerbaijan.

Gulez, who previously was a partner at EY before joining Mastercard Data & Services, said that the consulting firm already has a strong presence in Azerbaijan. “We currently provide consulting services to eight top banks in Azerbaijan, and we are also cooperating with the Central Bank of Azerbaijan.”

“We are seeing client demand increase,” continued Gulez, “and as a result of this, we are strengthening our investments and have decided to establish a local practice in 2024. The new team will initially serve our clients in Azerbaijan, and in the coming years expand its remit to surrounding countries.”

Located between the Caspian Sea and Caucasus Mountains, Azerbaijan is based at the intersection of Asia and Europe. Neighbouring countries include Georgia, Armenia, Russia, and Iran.

Broader push

The local expansion of Mastercard Data & Services is part of a broader push from Mastercard in the Azerbaijani market. At the same press conference, Mastercard’s regional manager in Azerbaijan Emil Zeynalov said the company is dedicated to helping the local payments industry take the next steps in its professionalisation.

“One of our priorities is to increase the number of NFC devices. NFC devices are very popular among everyone. You use these services on social media, and all our campaigns are aimed at expanding this. We also plan to continue investing in tokenization by running more campaigns that encourage NFC payments, as well as adding more banks to ApplePay and Google Pay services,” he said.

“We are also prioritizing further expanding the reach of Masterpass technology by partnering with banks and starting to integrate with their mobile apps.”