Uzbekistan Initiate Crypto Integration; Permits Two Banks Crypto Cards Access
Today, a report reveals that two private banks in Uzbekistan — Kapital Bank and Ravnaq Bank — earned approval from the National Agency for Perspective Projects (NAPP) to engage in the digital sandbox of crypto regulation for the country.
Ideally, both banks, Kapital Bank and Ravnaq Bank got approval for Perspective Projects to participate in the digital sandbox of crypto managing regulation. The banks will issue plastic crypto cards powered by Mastercard readily available to the populace.
The Evolving Integration in Uzbekistan
On August 14, the NAPP reported the approval for Ravnaq Bank to participate in its pilot. Before then, in May 2023, the government Agency affirmed that Kapital Bank would individually issue its crypto card as well as approved it.
Based on the report details, the Uzbeki crypto card has a name. They call it UzNEX, which will merge a bank account with authorization to a crypto exchange and automated exchange mechanism. Additionally, Mastercard, one of the world’s biggest paying cards for debit and credit will support the evolving integration.
At the time of writing, the current deadline for final customer rollouts of both banks’ crypto cards is the end of December 2023. Moreover, Kapital Bank and Ravnaq remain two of the three registered participants in the national digital sandbox in the involvement of these moving integrations.
Notably, the government of Uzbekistan has placed restrictions on the provision of crypto services to licensed cryptocurrency companies, with the first licenses granted to local crypto companies in November 2022 to prioritize national growth over private monopoly.
Before that, Uzbekistan prohibited access to a large number of international crypto exchanges, including Binance, FTX, and Huobi, due to accusations of unlicensed activity previously placed on them in other countries, especially the US.
The country’s regulatory body approach to crypto was implemented by a presidential decree in 2022 when the NAPP was inaugurated to govern the digital assets industry. The order also provided detailed legal pieces of information related to cryptocurrency mining operations in Uzbekistan.
