Payment services begin to disable cross-border transfers

Several Uzbek payment services announced a temporary suspension of cross-border payments and transfers from September 5.

On the evening of September 4, Pay Way announced this. Its press service warned that the application “will temporarily disable transfers in all international directions, including from Russia and to Russia”.

As representatives of Pay Way noted, the instruction to suspend the work of international payments came from the Central Bank.

Users were assured that payments within Uzbekistan – including transfers between Uzcard and Humo cards, payment for utilities, public services, communications and the Internet – would continue to work.

A little later, the press service of the Xalq Banki commented on the situation. With reference to the Central Bank, it said that the decision to suspend cross-border operations is designed to protect the local fintech sector from the risks of the international financial system.

The regulator pointed out that in order to provide services in foreign markets, Uzbek fintech companies must obtain licenses from the regulators of the countries where they are going to work.

In addition, they do not comply with the requirements of international organizations to monitor and prevent the legalization of illegal income, the financing of terrorism and violations of the sanctions regime. This means an increase in risk and a decrease in confidence in the banking and financial system of Uzbekistan as a whole.

Closer to midnight, OSON also warned about the suspension of international transfers and payments for foreign services. The company promised to restore work “in the near future”.

OSON later announced the withdrawal of all requests regarding penalties. The service agreed to pay a fine, turned off cross-border payment services and stopped managing money abroad on its own.

“We are united with the regulator in order to ensure the security of user payments. This incident hit the company hard. Now my main task as CEO is to keep more than a hundred of my employees,” Farhod Makhmudov, head of OSON, stated.

The top manager emphasized the accountability and transparency of the company from the beginning of its work. He noted that big fintech “really requires extensive management and a strategic will to develop technologies”.

In August, the Central Bank fined Brio Group, the owner of OSON. The reason was her violation of anti-money laundering legislation.

The head of OSON, Farhod Makhmudov, spoke about a letter from the regulator, which warned of a ban on fintech companies from working with cross-border payments from September 5. The information was confirmed by the director of Pay Way Bunyod Sattarov.