Azerbaijan's virtual assets bill expected before parliament in December

A draft law on virtual assets is expected to be brought to the National Assembly (Milli Majlis) for discussion in December this year. Modern.az reports that Gunduz Osman said so in a Facebook post summarising his meeting with Central Bank Chairman Taleh Kazimov and experts.

Osman said the main issues were stablecoins and the virtual assets bill. Research on stablecoins and a digital manat is continuing, and the specific model is not yet fully formed; the approach is not limited to a “1 manat = 1 stablecoin” model. Tokenisation of assets was also discussed, and private proposals will be considered under Central Bank control within a special regulatory regime.

Banks' access to state data was also discussed, with Kazimov calling it a higher priority for banking digitalisation. Osman noted that banks pay when querying state systems for customer data, even though citizens open accounts free, and that numerous queries create serious costs. He believes such access should simplify digital services, not become a source of extra costs.