Utrazbank: Single cross-border money transfers

2021: Uzbekistan creates unified system of remittances for migrant workers

At the end of December 2021, the National Bank for Foreign Economic Activity of the Republic of Uzbekistan (Uchastsbank) began to create a payment system on the basis of its processing center. It is intended for money transfers from abroad.

The system is called "Single cross-border remittances." Its operator will be Uchastbank, and its Moscow "daughter - Asia-Invest Bank" - will act in Russia as one of the settlement banks for international transfers.

Uzbekistan creates a unified system of remittances for migrant workers

According to Interfax, citing the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers of Uzbekistan, within the framework of the system being created, the government instructed relevant departments to develop a loan project to cover the costs of employment of Uzbek citizens working in the Russian Federation.

According to the calculations of the Central Bank of Uzbekistan, the total volume of money transfers to Uzbekistan from abroad in 2020 increased by 0.3% - to $6.03 billion, the volume of transfers abroad - to $1.2 billion (+ 5.6%). Russia still ranks first in transfers of individuals in Uzbekistan. In 2020, the volume of transfers to the republic amounted to $4.34 billion (-6.4%), in the opposite direction - $309.2 million (-11%). The regulator expects that in 2021 the total volume of foreign transfers will grow by more than a third - to almost $8 billion.

According to official figures, by the beginning of 2021, about 1.6 million citizens of the country were earning outside Uzbekistan - this is about 20% of the economically active population of the republic. At the same time, the majority - about 1.1 million people - worked in Russia.

The founders of United Fintech (the payment system of Uzbekistan, registered in December 2021) Viktor Nasochevsky and Bakhtiyorzhon Isamiddinov in a conversation with Spot reported that the problem of banks is that the fees for the payment of cross-border transfers are too low (0.3 - 0.35%) and often do not even fully compensate for the costs of paying transfers. This is especially true for cash transfers. For this reason, some banks restrict or even terminate cooperation with foreign^[1] systems^[2]

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