YEREVAN, June 16. /ARKA/. Financial organizations and companies in Armenia are ready to switch to cashless payment for transactions worth over 300 thousand drams, deputy chairman of the Central Bank Hovhannes Khachatryan told a news conference today, adding that this requirement comes into force on July 1 this year.

Khachatryan said the law applies fully to such areas as healthcare, notary offices, government agencies and educational institutions.

"As far as laws and by-laws are concerned, all preparatory work has been completed. We have also carried out certification of POS-terminals and other payment devices", Khachatryan said.

He said by now financial organizations are ready to serve all those economic entities, which are obliged by law to have POS-terminals or can activate cashless payment reception on their devices (cash registers).

"It is not necessary to make payments through cash registers, it is possible to install separate terminals. It is simply more affordable for thousands of business entities to activate non-cash payment functions via cash registers," Khachatryan explained.

Apart from that, according to him, business entities can visit the State Revenue Committee's official website to activate automatically cashless payment functions on cash registers and terminals.

He added that the new requirements of the law at this stage allow the repayment of loans in cash, including in pawnshops "to give pawnshops time to switch to cashless payment acceptance along with other business entities."

Deputy Justice Minister Yeranuhi Tumanyants said the application of the law will be supervised by the State Revenue Committee ( business entities), the Central Bank (banks, insurance companies, pawnshops) and  the Labor Inspectorate (salaries and others).

Tumanyants said  the application of this law will simplify the lives of citizens. "Many citizens mistakenly believe that cashless payments lead to withdrawal of additional commissions, but in fact many banks actively offer cashback.'

The law was approved by the parliament on June 9, 2022. According to it, a cash transaction amounting to more than AMD 300 thousand is considered void. The law also stipulates that non-cash payment should be available at all trade points in Armenia, except for the kiosks. ($1 - 424.42 drams). --0—