Central Bank approves retail payment procedure through the national payment switch

What the Central Bank approved

The Central Bank of Uzbekistan has approved a regulation on the procedure for retail payments through the national payment switch — a single centralized infrastructure for processing and clearing cashless payments within the country. The Ministry of Justice registered the document on October 23, reports Spot.uz. All payments from bank cards and e-wallets in sums within Uzbekistan will be routed through the switch.

Who will operate in the system and how

The switch infrastructure will handle request acceptance, routing, payment processing and authorization, clearing operations, preparation of settlement documents and reports, as well as information exchange within the country. The operator will be the Main Center for Informatization under the Central Bank (GCI), which will be responsible for the system's uninterrupted operation, its technical support and development, as well as information and cybersecurity. All banks will be able to connect to the switch as direct participants. Payment organizations, payment system operators and e-money operators will have to process transactions through a settlement bank, while also connecting directly to the system. Participants are required to maintain sufficient liquidity for settlements and comply with anti-money laundering measures.

Connection procedure and timelines

To connect, a company submits a written or electronic application to the Central Bank. The regulator will verify compliance with the established requirements and assess risks; then the GCI will conclude an agreement with the applicant, conduct testing and forward the results to the Central Bank — based on them, the regulator will approve the application or refuse it. Review may take up to 30 business days. The assessment will take into account operational and technical readiness (documentation and a test summary protocol from the GCI), cybersecurity (the organization's policy, information on measures and testing results) and risk management (risk assessment results, limits and control measures). The exact list of indicators, their threshold values and verification methods must be published on the websites of the Central Bank and the GCI; refusal of connection based on unpublished criteria is prohibited. The document enters into force three months after publication — on January 25, 2027. Thus, market participants have several months to prepare before payments are mandatorily migrated to the new infrastructure.