Financial Inclusion in Uzbekistan: Bridging the Last Mile
Executive Summary
Uzbekistan has made significant progress in financial inclusion since 2017, with bank account ownership rising from 37% to an estimated 52% by 2025. Yet 48% of the adult population — disproportionately women, rural residents, and informal sector workers — remain outside the formal financial system. This brief examines three policy levers that could close the gap by 2030.
1. The Current Landscape
The Global Findex 2021 survey places Uzbekistan below the Central Asian average (65%) in financial account ownership, despite being the region's most populous economy. The gap is not uniform: Tashkent City has 71% penetration while Karakalpakstan sits at just 28%. The gender gap compounds this geography — only 41% of women hold formal accounts compared to 63% of men.
Three structural barriers persist: (1) physical distance from bank branches in rural areas, (2) distrust of formal institutions rooted in Soviet-era experience, and (3) credit scoring systems that exclude the 60% of the workforce operating in the informal economy.
2. Three Policy Levers
2.1 Mobile-First Banking Infrastructure
The Central Bank of Uzbekistan's 2023 mobile payments regulation created the legal framework for mobile money operators. However, adoption remains below potential. Our analysis suggests that expanding mobile banking agent networks from 12,000 to 35,000 points — targeting bazaars, mahalla community centers, and rural post offices — could increase account ownership by 15 percentage points within three years. The cost-benefit ratio is favorable: each mobile agent costs approximately $200 to onboard versus $50,000 for a traditional bank branch.
2.2 Alternative Credit Scoring
Traditional credit scoring rejects approximately 40% of applicants who would actually repay their loans. At AloqaBank, our pilot incorporating utility payment history, mobile top-up patterns, and agricultural input purchases into the scoring model increased the eligible borrower pool by 18% without increasing default rates. Scaling this approach nationally requires three regulatory actions: (1) a data-sharing framework between utility providers and financial institutions, (2) consumer consent and data protection standards, and (3) Central Bank guidance on acceptable alternative data sources.
2.3 Targeted Financial Literacy
Supply-side interventions (more branches, better products) are necessary but insufficient. Demand-side barriers — particularly among women and older populations — require targeted financial literacy programs. Uzbekistan's mahalla community governance system provides a unique delivery channel that no other Central Asian country possesses. A $10M mahalla-based financial literacy program could reach 2 million adults over two years at a cost of $5 per person — among the lowest delivery costs globally.
“The question is not whether Uzbekistan can achieve universal financial inclusion — the institutional infrastructure exists. The question is whether policy sequencing will prioritize the hardest-to-reach populations or leave them for last.”
3. Recommendations
- 1.Expand mobile agent networks to 35,000 points by 2028, prioritizing rural mahallas and bazaars as distribution points.
- 2.Establish a national alternative credit data framework, enabling regulated sharing of utility and telecommunications data for credit scoring.
- 3.Launch a $10M mahalla-based financial literacy program targeting women and informal sector workers, leveraging existing community governance infrastructure.
- 4.Mandate gender-disaggregated reporting for all financial institutions, creating accountability for closing the 22-percentage-point gender gap.
- 5.Create a Financial Inclusion Innovation Fund ($5M) to support fintech startups developing products for underserved populations.