The Commercial Bank of Syria (CBS) is planning to issue the country's first ever credit card early next year as part of efforts to improve the bank's services, its chairman said Friday.
Mahmoud Nadim Miskal, Board Chairman and General Manager of the state-run CBS said that his bank had already agreed with Visa, the largest global payments system, to issue the plastic cards for Syrians who hold hard currency accounts in Syria, reported the Gulf Daily News.
The bank, which dominates the Syrian market, will issue Visa cards in local currency, the Syrian pound, at a later stage, he said.
"We will start soon to accept the international Visa cards issued abroad in all our 55 branches in Syria even before we issue our own Visa cards," he said.
Miskal said the main factor that paved the way for the introduction of the use of plastic money in Syria was the bank's decision to fix the pound's value at its real market rate.
Syria introduced early this year the so-called non-commercial rate - fixed at 50.3 Syrian pounds for one US dollar yesterday - to allow dealers change their money at the state-run banks rather than the black market which used to attract the majority of customers.
This rate is reviewed daily to allow the fluctuation of the pound's value in accordance with the market condition – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
