A Cash Based Society...

Here in Azerbaijan, things like debit cards haven’t really caught on. I have a debit card that I use at the ATM when I need money (the Peace Corps deposits our monthly living allowance in a local bank account) but there’s nowhere else that I can use it, with the exception of maybe a few places in Baku. Everyone just uses cash. I use cash to pay my rent, buy food at the store, buy a train ticket, buy more time for my cell phone, etc. But the strange thing is that even though we are in a cash based society, many, many Azerbaijanis have had to learn to use the ATM. All government positions – teachers, doctors, transportation workers, pensioners, etc. – are paid via direct deposit into accounts, and they access that money via an ATM card. The banking system here is still fairly new (rebuilt after becoming independent in 1991) and many people don’t put their full trust in it. What that means is that most of the time when people get paid, they withdraw everything and operate in cash only. The worst time to go to the ATM is at the end of the month when the pensioners get paid. The crowd is insane! And there is no such thing as a line; it’s just a clump of people gathered around the ATM.

Normally there’s no wait, but for those couple of days there can easily be 20 or 30 people waiting to use the ATM. And sometimes you’ll get there and an elderly person will give you their card and tell you their pin number because they don’t know how to use the ATM. I once waited behind someone who helped four others with their transactions. The hard part of transitioning to a cash based society is that I actually have to plan ahead for what purchases I’ll be making to ensure that I have enough money before I go to the store. Coming from a place where I usually had just enough cash to grab food at a drive-thru because I would use my debit card for everything else, it’s quite an adjustment.