Let's get insights into the fintech market of Uzbekistan from the top managers of the three leading local fintech companies.
Spot mass media website conducted an interview with Shukhratbek Kurbanov CEO of HUMO, Sergey Gimadiev Deputy Chairman of the Board of Kapitalbank for Retail Business and Ulugbek Rustamov CEO of CLICK about money, banks, and fintech in quarantine.
Key takeaways:
- According to the HUMO payment system, users began to pay less often, but the average check amount increased to 50%
- Prior to the quarantine announcement, Kapital Bank managed to launch the delivery of plastic cards, today more than 3 thousand have been delivered. Currently, 97% of payments are made online. Bank has its payment app Apelsin.
- Card-to-card transfers through CLICK Evolution payment app increased by 70%, and payments - by 20–25%. Payments on the Internet, utilities have grown. Five times increased demand for opening a wallet. In the last month, about 130 thousand were opened.
- Loan repayment requests through CLICK Evolution have grown very much. Now, in fact, 90% of banks, 40% of microcredit organizations are connected to this service
- HUMO payment processing company is developing HUMO PAY a local alternative to Google Pay and Apple Pay
- CLICK focusing on developing its own devices for merchants CLICK PASS where they can accept contactless payments
- The Central Bank of Uzbekistan the regulator of all the banking and payment system in the country open to cooperation and implementing laws and regulations that will allow companies to introduce new products
- Kapital Bank significantly improved its core banking services it is 'Автоматизированная банковская система" in the Russian language. I would like to thank bank specialists and Sergey Gimadiev for these improvements. This was and is still one of the main problems of banks in Uzbekistan
- CLICK improved the development process that lets it increase product development and shipment
- All companies highlighted the lack of specialists and this fact. I like how Shukhratbek managed to tackle this problem. The company basically hired specialists and taught them and now they are one of the best specialists.
- Recently TBC Bank entered the market and the Kapital Bank and CLICK are ready for competition
- Apelsin mobile app adding a feature virtual VISA cards. Customers will be able to open create a virtual VISA card on Apelsin and add fund in foreign currency
- CLICK wallet has the anti-fraud measure
- Apelsin already has a feature to fill the account on Yandex.Money and CLICK also working on this feature. More integration with international payment systems are coming
- HUMO will not launch its own payment app like Uzcard but it will have a mobile app that will allow managing your HUMO cards
- Companies do not see a need for blockchain at the moment
- Fintech companies are looking for data science specialists and in perspective, they are planning to implement in their operations