Central Bank to tighten oversight on payments exceeding UZS 10.3 million

The Central Bank of Uzbekistan has proposed a new set of regulations aimed at strengthening oversight of financial transactions and combating money laundering. According to a draft document published for public discussion, the regulator intends to lower the threshold for mandatory reporting and expand the types of information required for significant domestic and international transfers.

The initiative is largely driven by the need to align national financial practices with the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Under the proposed changes, banks and financial institutions will be required to attach detailed information about both the sender and the recipient for all domestic payments and transfers amounting to 25 base calculating amount (BCA) or more, which currently equates to UZS 10.3 million. This represents a significant tightening of existing rules, which currently only apply to electronic transfers exceeding 30 BCA or UZS 12.6 million.

For individual senders, the required documentation will include a unique transaction number, residential address, and date of birth. Legal entities will be required to provide their Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN). On the receiving end, the data must include the transaction number, the country or city of location, and the TIN for corporate recipients. Furthermore, commercial banks will be mandated to include bank card numbers with all payments made for goods and services, while information regarding the issuing bank and the merchant’s servicing bank must be provided upon request.

The draft law also addresses cross-border activities, such as cash withdrawals from ATMs at foreign banks. In these instances, the card number must be attached to the transaction request. If an acquiring bank requests specific client data, the domestic bank will be obligated to provide that information within three working days.

To modernize the handling of multiple transactions, the Central Bank is introducing the concept of "batch transfers." This refers to a single transaction sent to a financial institution that contains several individual payments for one or more recipients. While banks will not need to attach sender details to every single sub-payment within a batch – provided the data is present within the overall transfer – each batch must contain a unique account or transaction number and complete information about the recipients.

Public comments on these proposed amendments are being accepted on the national portal for legislative acts until April 4.