Freedom to Choose a Bank for Salary Transfers
Currently, in Uzbekistan, the employer chooses the bank with which to sign a contract, and employees are required to receive their salaries exclusively from that bank.
By December 2025, the Central Bank will propose measures allowing citizens to choose their own bank or electronic provider for receiving salaries, which should increase competition in the banking services and payment systems market.
By June 2026, the Central Bank will integrate the function of mass (parallel) payments into state payment systems, allowing employers to send salary payments to different banks simultaneously.
New Opportunities for P2P Transfers
By the end of February 2026, the Central Bank plans to implement a P2P transfer service between citizens using mobile phone numbers within the fast payment system.
This feature will be available to payment service providers through Open API, ensuring compatibility with various applications.
In April, the Deputy Director of the Payment Systems Department of the Central Bank, Miraziz Mirkhayotov, stated that the regulator intends to connect individuals to the Instant Payment System, which is currently available only to legal entities and individual entrepreneurs. This innovation will be focused on the social sector.
Creation of a National Payment Switch
To enhance the stability and security of the payment system in the country, a "payment switch" will be created — a single routing point for all transactions in the national currency through the Central Bank.
According to the plan, the Central Bank must:
- study foreign examples of payment switches and prepare a technical assignment for the project by January 2026;
- develop and approve a regulatory act by March 2026, requiring international and local operators, including electronic wallets, to operate through the Central Bank's single gateway.
In May 2023, the Humo payment system initiated the launch of a national gateway for processing transactions with international cards. At that time, it was reported that transactions with Visa, Mastercard, and UnionPay cards issued by Uzbek banks were processed through foreign servers, which increased costs for international internet traffic and created risks for the speed and security of operations.
The implementation of the national Humo gateway partially localized the process within the country, providing additional data protection and reducing costs for banks. It was also expected to decrease commission payments to interbank payment systems, as local transactions do not pass through their infrastructure.
At the end of 2024, Humo privatized the payment service Paynet.
