The Central Bank of Uzbekistan has acknowledged the inefficiency of the system for the delivery of pensions and benefits through the Xalq Bank.

The Head of the Department of Prudential Supervision of Credit Organizations at the Central Bank, Abrorkhoja Turdialiyev, announced this at a briefing on UzReport.

He also said that pensioners would now be able to choose their own serving bank.

“The system of delivering pension funds through a single bank had proved to be ineffective and should be abandoned. This will enable pensioners to open an account in any bank they wish and to use its cards. This will not be a one-off opportunity, and retirees may change the bank according to their satisfaction with the quality of the banking services,” Turdialiyev said.

He emphasized that this would create healthy competition among banks.

In addition, the Central Bank, as the supervisory authority for banks and payment systems, apologized to the pensioners for the inconvenience.

Many pensioners had problems with the transfer of pension to plastic cards. Some have not yet received a bank card, others have not been able to receive a pension at the specified time or cash it out.

The Pension Fund and the Xalq Bank had also previously published a joint appeal for retirees.

“The Xalq Bank’s electronic information system was overloaded, as 480,000 files on pensioners’ data and bank cards were uploaded to the server simultaneously,” said the statement.