DUSHANBE, January 21, 2009, Asia-Plus — Open joint-stock company (OJSC) Agroinvestbonk, which is one of Tajikistan’s largest commercial banks, has implemented a large credit card project in the Sughd province, offering its corporate customers a convenient service — salary cards, according to Agroinvestbonk’s head office in Dushanbe.
The salary card project, implemented by Agroinvestbonk’s branch in Sughd’s Panjakent district, resulted in Tajik-Chinese joint venture, Zeravshan (Zeravshan Gold Company or ZGC), introducing a system of paying employees’ wages through debit salary cards provided by Agroinvestbonk. Agroinvestbonk’s branch in Panjakent opened deposit accounts for ZGC employees and issue credit cards to them.
“Taking into consideration that ZGC is located some 30 kilometers of the city of Panjakent, where Agroinvestbonk’s automated teller machine (ATM) has successfully operated since August 2008, the bank has decided to install an additional ATM in the territory of ZGC,” the source said, noting that salary cards make salary transfers easy and simple.
Now, 1,500 employees of GZC can access their cash at ATMs serving VISA credit cards, the source said, adding that Agroinvestbonk has implemented more than 100 salary card projects so far. Its salary card clients now include the National Bank of Tajikistan, Treasury at the Ministry of Finance, Tajik Agricultural University, a number of cellular operators such as TT-Mobile and Indigo-Tajikistan, gold-mining joint venture Aprelevka, Tajiktelecom-Khujand (fixed-line telecommunications network), as well as Tajik trading companies and enterprises, and some of the embassies and international organizations based in Dushanbe. Within the framework of the salary card project, Agroinvestbonk issues VISA Electron cards to organizations’ employees free of charge.
Agroinvestbonk currently has 51 ATMs installed across the country. 30 of them re installed in Dushanbe and districts subordinate to the center (RRPs), 13 in the Sughd province, 7 in the Khatlon province, and one in Khorog (Gorno Badakhshan). By the end of the first quarter of this year, the bank intends to increase the number of its ATMs in the country to 60.
Founded in 1992, Agroinvestbonk, with headquarters in Dushanbe, has main branches in Khorog, Khujand, Kulob and Qurghon Teppa and 61 other branches across the republic.
