What is new is the role played by speed, cost, exchange rates, predictability, and the resilience of cross-border payments: these factors are increasingly becoming independent criteria in customers’ choice of bank.
This trend is particularly visible in Uzbekistan, where foreign trade, migrant remittances, e-commerce, and direct financial ties with Asia and the Middle East are all expanding at the same time.
Uzbekistan: Demand Is Growing on Several Fronts
In January–June 2026, Uzbekistan’s foreign trade turnover reached $41 billion, up 7.4% year on year. China accounted for 23.1% of total trade, Russia for 17.1%, Kazakhstan for 6.8%, and Türkiye for 3.4%.
For businesses, this means growing demand not simply for a “dollar SWIFT transfer,” but for reliable payment routes across multiple currencies.
Retail flows are expanding as well. According to the Central Bank of Uzbekistan, incoming remittances from abroad increased by 13% in the first half of 2026, reaching $9.3 billion. Direct P2P transfers to bank cards already accounted for 51.7% of the total, or $4.8 billion, with this channel growing by 32%. Transfers from EU countries increased by 27%, from the United States by 19%, and from the United Kingdom by 62%.
A third factor is e-commerce. Its volume in Uzbekistan increased from UZS 15.21 trillion in 2024 to UZS 31.55 trillion in 2025. This growth is driving demand for faster settlement, currency conversion, and digital banking services.
Banks Are Competing on More Than Fees
An international payment today is a combination of routing, the FX rate, fees, settlement time, and compliance.
A direct correspondent account reduces the number of intermediaries, while effective screening reduces the risk of unnecessary delays. As a result, correspondent banking networks have once again become part of banks’ competitive strategies.
Octobank is a notable example. According to the bank, in the first half of 2026 it opened new correspondent accounts with DBS Bank in Singapore in USD and CNH, ICBC London in CNH, Yes Bank in India in INR, Bank of Asia in Kyrgyzstan in KGS, and Sohar International Bank in Oman in OMR.
At the same time, the bank launched transfers from Kazakhstan to HUMO and UZCARD cards via Kaspi.kz, as well as transfers from South Korea through E9PAY. This represents a shift from abstract “international presence” toward the development of specific payment corridors.
Other Uzbek banks are moving in the same direction. Kapitalbank’s list of correspondent banks published in April 2026 includes, among others, Commerzbank for euro transactions, China Construction Bank for Chinese yuan, Mashreq Bank for UAE dirhams, and Shinhan and Kookmin Bank for transactions in Korean won and US dollars.
Kazakhstan Has Greater Scale; Uzbekistan Has Greater Market Momentum
Kazakhstan’s foreign trade turnover reached $71.8 billion in January–June 2026, up 7.2% year on year. Its key trading partners include China, Russia, the European Union, and Türkiye.
Major Kazakh banks have more extensive correspondent banking infrastructure. ForteBank, for example, discloses US dollar correspondent relationships with Bank of New York Mellon and JPMorgan Chase, and euro relationships with Commerzbank and Raiffeisen Bank International. For Chinese yuan transactions, it uses Bank of China Kazakhstan and ICBC Almaty.
At the same time, Kazakhstan is already experimenting with next-generation payment infrastructure. Cross-border use cases involving the digital tenge were tested in 2025, and in August 2026 the National Bank of Kazakhstan announced an agreement with the People’s Bank of China to launch a pilot for settlements using the digital tenge and digital yuan.
This does not yet replace correspondent banking, but it could become an entirely new layer of payment infrastructure.
In Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, competition is more heavily influenced by household remittances. According to World Bank data for 2025, personal remittances were equivalent to 57.7% of GDP in Tajikistan, 17.6% in Kyrgyzstan, and 14.3% in Uzbekistan.
As a result, settlement speed, mobile access, and currency conversion rates have systemic importance for retail banking in these markets.
Sanctions on Russia Have Turned Compliance Into Part of the Product
Following the expansion of restrictions on the Russian financial sector, the cost of compliance failures for Central Asian banks has increased substantially.
OFAC explicitly states that a foreign financial institution may be subject to sanctions for significant transactions involving persons blocked under Executive Order 14024, and that the risk extends to transactions conducted in non-US-dollar currencies.
This has already occurred in the region. In January 2025, the US Treasury designated Kyrgyzstan’s Keremet Bank, alleging that it had participated in a cross-border payment scheme benefiting Russia’s Promsvyazbank.
In July 2026, the EU extended its transaction ban to another Kyrgyz bank linked to Russia’s SPFS financial messaging system, as well as to three other banks outside Russia in connection with sanctions circumvention.
The result is greater scrutiny of beneficial owners, payment purposes, and supply chains, along with more manual processing and higher compliance costs.
The FATF has noted that differences in AML/CFT implementation increase costs and reduce the speed of cross-border payments. A 2026 BIS study likewise identified insufficient interoperability between systems as one of the key problems facing the market.
Currency risk, fraud, and dependence on foreign correspondent banks add further complexity. As a result, network resilience is becoming just as important as pricing.
Fintech and New Forms of Money Are Increasing the Pressure
Banks are also being forced to compete with fintech-style interfaces.
Kaspi, for example, allows customers to transfer funds from Kazakhstan to Uzcard and Humo cards for a 0.95% fee, while displaying the exchange rate before the transaction is confirmed. This is setting a new benchmark for customer convenience.
In Uzbekistan, regulators announced a pilot on September 7, 2026, involving the use of the HUMO stable token as a means of payment.
In Kazakhstan, the digital tenge has already been established as legal tender, while its infrastructure continues to scale.
SWIFT is changing as well. Following completion of the main transition to ISO 20022 in November 2025, the network reported a 97% adoption rate. From November 14, 2026, payments containing fully unstructured participant addresses will no longer be accepted within CBPR+.
For banks, this means additional investment in data quality, automated screening, and payment infrastructure.
Who Will Gain the Edge Over the Next 2–3 Years?
The banks that succeed will not necessarily be those offering the lowest fees.
The advantage will go to institutions capable of maintaining several independent payment routes, establishing direct relationships with banks in China, Europe, Türkiye, the Gulf states, and South Asia, conducting KYC/AML checks efficiently, and showing customers the full cost of currency conversion and the status of their payment in advance.
Kazakhstan currently appears stronger in terms of scale and infrastructure maturity. Uzbekistan, meanwhile, is the more dynamic market, where rapid growth in trade, remittances, and e-commerce is turning international payments into a distinct area of banking competition.
Against this backdrop, Octobank’s expansion of correspondent accounts in CNH, INR, KGS, and OMR, together with the launch of new P2P corridors, should be viewed not merely as an exercise in international positioning, but as a response to changing customer demand.
The more complex the global payments environment becomes, the greater the value of a bank that can process a legitimate international payment quickly, predictably, and with as few intermediaries as possible.
Across Central Asia, this capability is increasingly likely to determine where businesses maintain their primary settlement accounts and where individuals keep their main bank cards.