BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 28. Uzbekistan has created all conditions for Apple pay and Google pay to become available locally, a source at Uzbekistan’s Central Bank (CBU) told Trend.
According to the source, there are no legal restrictions for the mentioned systems to work in Uzbekistan.
“The Central Bank pays special attention to the development of digital financial services, ensuring access of the general population to remote services, as well as the creation of alternative payment methods,” he said.
Furthermore, he emphasized that banks' mobile apps have been in great demand among Uzbek citizens over the past few years.
“A large number of mobile banking applications have appeared in the country, which also actively compete with mobile applications of fintech companies. It should be noted that not only digital banks but also ordinary banks provide their services via mobile apps,” the source noted.
According to the source, banks' mobile apps in Uzbekistan provide the following services: classic loans, savings, and various types of payments, online conversion, ordering and opening bank cards (plastic and virtual), international transfers, account and wallet management, as well as card-to-card transfer operations, etc.
"Banks of Uzbekistan also offer various loyalty and cashback programs through mobile apps. Nowadays, about 28 out of 32 banks of Uzbekistan, have their own mobile apps," he added.
Moreover, the CBU said that the epidemiological situation in the country, in particular, the COVID-19 pandemic became an impulsion for the development of a mobile banking system in Uzbekistan.
“The system has made it possible not only to improve the quality and optimize the procedure for providing financial services to the population but also to ensure the automatic collection of reliable information about an individual,” the bank added.
Among the Central Asia states, Google pay is available in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, while Apple pay is available only in Kazakhstan.