Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Dec. 30 / Trend D.Azizov/
Uzbekistan has completed the project of transferring the UZKART interbank payment system on to the EMV platform used by the largest world payment systems and financial institutions, Uzbekistan Banking Association (UBA) told Trend on Friday.
Supply of the EMV platform for the UZKART national payment system in Uzbekistan was carried out by Russian Bank Technologies.
UZKART combines payment systems of 28 Uzbek commercial banks and serves customers using 8.5 million plastic cards.
The decision on changing the existing processing centre was dictated by the need to meet the growth rate of the national payment business, UBA said.
According to the integrated republican processing centre, the annual growth of issued cards volume and terminals has gone up by 25-30 per cent and the transactions volume has doubled each year. Currently there are around 100,000 terminals are installed in the country.
The platform change does not mean cancellation of UZKART cards issued earlier or existing terminals. For the two systems to work in parallel, DUET and EMV, the software of the existing terminal equipment park, including points of sale, ATMs and information kiosks were updated and modernised in a short transition period. It was done to ensure receipt of cards issued by DUET technology as well as new cards of EMV standard.
The further expansion of acquiring the UZKART network will be carried out only by using devices with software compatible with EMV.
The application of recognised world standards will make it possible to prepare a technical base for the further integration of UZKART with international payment systems as well as for the receipt of international cards (VISA, MasterCard, etc.) by all UZKART terminals.
The introduction of the new technological platform will affect the development of the republic's entire banking system since it will create conditions for the introduction of new banking services and make it possible to introduce new, electronic channels of banking, UBA said.