Apple Pay and Google Pay in Uzbekistan: what already works, what banks and local services should expect

What changed on October 27

On the morning of October 27, iPhone and Android users in Uzbekistan were able to add cards from local banks to Apple Wallet and Google Wallet. For now, the services only accept Visa and Mastercard cards: Humo and Uzcard cannot be added, but according to the Central Bank, work on this is underway and support will appear in the near future. The list of supported banks and cards will also be expanded gradually. Spot.uz has already published instructions on how to set up Apple Pay on iPhone and how to set up Google Pay on Android.

Who wins and who loses

Experts interviewed by Spot.uz agree that the changes will affect not so much the payment process itself as the distribution of revenue in the market. Banks issuing Visa and Mastercard cards will see growth in card sales and purchase commissions, while acquiring banks will gain part of the payments that shift from QR codes to POS terminals. According to one expert, most QR payments were made not in banking apps but in apps of payment organizations, so at the first stage NFC payments will significantly reduce payments through them — 'part of the payments will return to the banks.' In about six months, once the market is saturated, the shares of PAY payments and QR payments will even out, he predicts, and real competition between the technologies will begin.

Why there will be no mass transition without Humo and Uzcard

Another expert calls the lack of Humo and Uzcard support the main limitation: the overwhelming majority of the more than 77 million cards in circulation are precisely these — salaries, pensions, and social benefits are paid onto them, whereas Visa and Mastercard are opened mainly for foreign currency transactions. For now, the audience of PAY services is limited mostly to urban residents with international cards and modern smartphones. Additional barriers: not all POS terminals accept contactless payments, some budget smartphones lack an NFC module, the share of iPhones among the population is relatively small, and when paying in sums with a dollar card, conversion occurs at the bank's rate.

Competition with Click, Payme, and Paynet is limited

Direct competition between Apple Pay and Google Pay and local services is limited, according to the expert: the core business of Click, Payme, and Paynet is built on utility and telecom payments, government services, P2P transfers, and loan repayments — things international wallets do not do. Competition will affect stores, where tapping a phone is faster than scanning a QR code, as well as online purchases and foreign subscriptions. Local services are already adapting: Click has added an Apple Pay button to its payment page for online stores. As an example, the expert cites Kazakhstan, where Apple Pay has operated since 2018, but local super-apps and QR payments retain leadership in everyday transactions.

Risks: fraud and dependence on platforms

Experts also point to new risks. For users — a fraud scheme in which a 'bank employee' tricks a victim into revealing an SMS code that is actually needed to link the victim's card to a Wallet on someone else's phone: the plastic card remains with the owner, while money is spent from another device. Also, paying with a passcode instead of Face ID allows anyone who knows the phone's passcode to make purchases with the card. For banks, the risk is that when verification is done only via SMS code, fraud losses often fall on the bank — enhanced identification through an app or biometrics is needed. In addition, the service depends on decisions by Apple and Google, and the platforms' transaction fee terms are not publicly disclosed.

Legislative changes as a condition for the launch

The launch of the services was preceded by a change in the legal framework: in March 2026, Uzbekistan introduced amendments to the personal data law, removing the requirement to store all citizens' personal data within the country. One of the experts surveyed calls this a shift toward a more flexible regulatory model and emphasizes that attracting international companies and protecting data should not be seen as mutually exclusive goals: the effectiveness of the reform should be assessed both by the emergence of new digital services and by the level of data protection and the regulators' ability to respond to violations.