Currency sale control measures continue strictly in Azerbaijan. The measures mainly cover newly licensed currency exchange points.
The editorial office reports that the Central Bank of Azerbaijan has suspended the license of "Delta Capital" LLC, a currency exchange point, for a period of 1 month.
According to information released by the Central Bank, this decision was made due to "Delta Capital's" failure to comply with a previously issued mandatory instruction, as well as other violations.
Thus, the Central Bank states that the company violated the requirements of paragraphs 4.10 and 5.2 of the "Rules for Conducting Currency Exchange Operations by Licensed Persons and Control over Currency Exchange Activities". These paragraphs require that a currency exchange point must have permanent security, and its security systems must be connected to a centralized police security console 24 hours a day. During working hours, there must be armed security. During non-working hours, if there is more than 20,000 manats in the cash register, there must be armed security at the point.
Article 5.2 of the Rules – which is reported to have been violated – states that the cashier at the currency exchange point must wear a badge with their full name (first name, surname, patronymic), photo, and position. At the same time, the cashier must not delegate their authority to another person and must not allow unauthorized persons into the point.
However, it becomes clear from the Central Bank's information that the main violations at "Delta Capital" relate to currency transactions exceeding limits and not being recorded. The Central Bank's information states that the currency exchange point violated Article 16-1.1 of the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan "On Currency Regulation". This article states that the Central Bank of Azerbaijan establishes a unified information system for collecting data on all currency operations for the purpose of currency control. Currency control agents (i.e., currency exchange points) must enter information about the currency operations they conduct into this information system and use this system for currency control purposes. It appears from the Central Bank's information that the company did not use this system as required.
The main problem was related to the volume of currency bought and sold to customers. The Central Bank states that "Delta Capital" company repeatedly violated the requirements of paragraphs 3.4, 3.6, 4.7, 6.3, and 7.3 of the "Rules for Conducting Currency Exchange Operations by Licensed Persons and Control over Currency Exchange Activities".
Article 3.4 states that a currency exchange point must require an identity document when selling more than 500 US dollars or buying more than 10,000 US dollars in cash foreign currency from a single customer. Some transactions here were conducted without documents.
Article 3.6 of the Rules states that a currency exchange point cannot sell more than 20,000 manats worth of foreign currency to one person per day. If we are talking about dollars, this amounts to 11,760 US dollars at the current exchange rate. The point most likely sold more dollars to the customer and exceeded the limit.
Another reason is related to the placement of cameras and their recording everything that happens. Article 4.7 of the Rules states that surveillance cameras must be installed in a place where they can record the cashier and the customer, as well as the customer service area. Recorded images must be stored for at least 6 months at the currency exchange point where they were recorded, and in the case of an additional facility, backup copies of these images must be stored in the main building of the person licensed for currency exchange activities. This rule was also violated.
Paragraph 6.3 of the Rules was also violated – according to this paragraph, when currency exchange operations are conducted, the customer is issued a currency exchange receipt, which is considered a strict reporting form for those operations.
Finally, according to paragraph 7.3, currency exchange points must transmit information about the currency operations conducted there to the unified information system established by the Central Bank in accordance with Article 16-1.1 of the Law "On Currency Regulation". This rule was also violated.
To eliminate the identified violations and align the activity with the requirements of relevant legislative acts, in accordance with Articles 13-7.1.2 and 13-7.2 of the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan "On Currency Regulation", the Central Bank decided to suspend the validity of license No. VMF-02, issued to "Delta Capital" LLC on 08.12.2021 for conducting currency exchange operations, for a period of 1 (one) month starting from 28.08.2025.
The Central Bank also suspended the license of another currency exchange point, "Zuhur" LLC, for 1 month. The reason was its failure to comply with the Central Bank's instructions.
The issue concerns the repeated violation of the requirements of Article 16-1.1 of the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan "On Currency Regulation" and paragraph 4.7 of the "Rules for Conducting Currency Exchange Operations by Licensed Persons and Control over Currency Exchange Activities" (information on both articles was provided above).
To eliminate the identified violations and align the activity with the requirements of relevant legislative acts, in accordance with Articles 13-7.1.2 and 13-7.2 of the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan "On Currency Regulation", the Central Bank decided to suspend the validity of license No. VMF-03, issued to "Zuhur" LLC on 15.03.2022 for conducting currency exchange operations, for a period of 1 (one) month starting from 28.08.2025.