As of 1 September 2009, 20 commercial banks in Uzbekistan emit banking cards. They issued over 3.7 million banking cards, of which 99% are used by individuals. The banks also installed 35,000 POS-terminals. Aggregate turnover on banking cards made up 1.4 trillion soums.

The committee said it studied 309 trade and service points to ensure adherence of consumer rights and surveyed 550 business entities. The results of study showed that 95% of polled enterprises installed POS-terminals on rent bases. At the same time, the rent of POS-terminals makes up from 10,000 soums to 50,000 soums a month. The POS-terminals accept from 15% to 85% of daily revenue.

According to the committee, high cost of equipment and services is one of barriers, which create difficulties for businesses and consumers.

The committee underlined that all commercial banks buy plastic cards, terminals, ATMs, info-stands and software from Sercotec Select LLC (USA), which is the only supplier. The committee said the analysis of the market showed that equipment of other producers like Russia and China are cheaper for 2-5 times compared to Sercotec Select LLC equipment.

The banks carry out significant expenses on services of Single National Processing Center on preliminary emission of plastic cards and processing services, which results in unprofitableness of banking card emissions to separate banks.

At the same time, there are not equal terms at interbank transactions, where four banks (NBU, Khalq Bank, Agrobank and Asaka Bank) charge 0.1% from the turnover funds and 0.3% from other banks.

Some commercial banks do not adhere to set maximum tariffs, set by the Central Bank and Uzcard Interbank Processing Center for servicing clients with banking cards. The committee said they set high tariffs for putting money to accounts.

Besides, there were also violations of POS-terminal rent tariffs. The committee said the bank charge businesses higher than set tariffs.

Another problem is low competition in repairing and serving ATMs and POS-terminals. Only three companies operate in the market, while Osiyo Sistemalari holds about 80% of market, which provides terms to dictate its own rules. Other problem is that these enterprises are in Tashkent and it creates problems to service POS-terminals and ATMs in other regions of Uzbekistan.

The committee underlined that banks solve issues on purchase of POS-terminals for long, while other charge rent fee for POS-terminals despite businesses purchase them for own resources. It added that long-payment processing and various commission fees hinder for development of payment with banking cards.

The committee revealed some violations in rendering of service, including raising prices for products in paying with banking cards and some banks refused to accept payments with banking cards.

There are also some technical limits in current banking cards as POS-terminals do not accept cards of other banks, some set limits for card users, sum limit or limit on number of transactions.

The Demonopolization Committee said the work is underway on improvement situation in the market. In particular, it is working on decreasing prices for imported equipment and localization of production of POS-terminals and ATMs.

The committee said the reduction of tariffs for services and abolishment of commission fee, as well as unification of commission fee for interbank turnover.