Technology is easy; trust, talent and rules decide leapfrogs

Opening the second day, the Innovation Day, H.E. Nodirbek Saydullayev, First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of the Republic of Uzbekistan, set out a clear mandate: to establish Uzbekistan as a FinTech hub that creates financial products at home and then expands into regional and global markets. Recognising that technology's value is measured in outcomes, such as faster, more convenient and more accessible financial services, Uzbekistan's national FinTech strategy focuses on innovation by expanding regulatory sandbox, targeted innovation-support mechanisms, and modern payment rails underpinning open finance. Talent, however, will be the decisive factor to achieve the country’s goals and Uzbekistan has committed to training 5,000 young FinTech specialists by 2030, anchoring a hub built to compete regionally and globally. As AI adoption accelerates, the central bank will treat security and innovation as complementary functions to progress together, not in tension, and is committed to open dialogue, responsible technology use and deeper international cooperation on shared rails.

Dr. Patrick Njoroge, former Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya noted that networks leapfrog nations only when digital public infrastructure is built first. He set out four critical pillars: verifiable digital identity, low-cost real-time interoperable payments, consent mechanism with guardrails, and consent-based data exchange. An example is Kenya's mobile government-securities platform, which took five years to build and gave ordinary citizens a paperless, secure savings channel. Encouraging countries to adopt global benchmarks rather than reinvent the wheel, he laid out three tests that should frame frontier technology: people-centric design, technical resilience, and public-private cooperation. He also warned about risks, such as financial-stability, fraud, and illicit-flow risks with stablecoins, conflicting US and EU rules with potential spill over into other jurisdictions, and capital-expenditure bubbles, hallucination, bias, privacy harms, and concentrated power linked to AI. The solutions will require global coordination on conflicting rules and urgent AI governance.

A Central Bank official from China argued that on-chain value could inflate real economic use, citing a monitoring scan of 16 public chains which found that genuine payment activity accounted for only 1% of roughly US$60 trillion in on-chain transfers last year. A Central Bank official from Uzbekistan countered citing Uzbekistan’s own strong remittance record, delivering US$9.3 billion in first-half remittances with over half going straight to bank cards. Panellists agreed that the right model depends on context, jurisdictions with capital controls favoured central bank digital currencies while liquid markets favoured private stablecoins. When asked for a wish list to conclude the session, central bankers asked for better data and reserve transparency from private sector while those in the industry called for anchoring innovation within a real problem, to be solved jointly with regulators.

Dr. Veerathai Santiprabhob, former Governor of the Bank of Thailand, argued that digital financial transformation is not a technology project, since technology is often the easiest part to obtain. He judges public infrastructure against five dimensions: productivity, inclusivity, immunity, adaptability and integrity. By that standard Thailand's 2016 system fell short, recording only 60 electronic payments per person a year, while collateral-based lending shut households and SMEs out of formal credit and migrant workers paid close to 10% to send money home. The central bank, government, banking industry and FinTech community responded together with PromptPay, an instant payment system with no transaction fee, a national QR code standard, open payment standards, digital ID and a new Payment Systems Act. Electronic payments passed 650 per person a year and mobile banking grew more than 25 times. He set out four lessons: mindset change across every stakeholder, guiding principles agreed early, incentives that keep competition alive, and proper governance.

The session began with a case study about a young Samarkand entrepreneur, whose loan-application is rejected by a bank's AI without a clear reason. This provided the anchoring question for the panel - whether banks, regulators and countries can trust the systems that drive AI decisions and which part of the stack spanning customer data, external models, offshore cloud and supplier contracts is most critical. Views split on which layer needs first attention when the goal is real operational trust. Some panellists flagged the importance of data, as errors there pass into every layer above. Banks must own data, decision logs and governance even when models or cloud sit elsewhere. A central bank official flagged lack of control as the core risk, along with the risk of black-box credit models. The panel agreed that lenders cannot outsource responsibility for AI-driven outcomes and urged starting from shared principles and policy, built in parallel so rigid rules do not freeze progress. The panel concluded with the need for customer data, evidence trails and exit options to stay onshore, prior to scaling AI-driven credit decisions.

Digital payment adoption in Uzbekistan surged from 39% in 2021 to 72% in 2025. Cybercrime cases, however, also rose from 4,800 to over 62,000 in five years. Total admitted losses have also surged, with more than half recorded in 2025 alone. A payment rail provider noted that globally the weakest link in this chain remains the human with social engineering, deepfakes and phishing now taking only minutes. A commercial bank chief said first-time users lack basic security and data-protection knowledge, shifting disproportionate responsibility onto commercial banks that must catch client mistakes inside their own systems. Uzbekistan’s Central Bank is shifting from compliance-based rules to risk-based supervision of cyber threats. It plans to launch a cybersecurity framework with four maturity levels for banks next year. The panellists agreed that real-time collaboration is the single capability the sector must build within the next twelve months.

The panel explored what open finance truly depends on – rules, rails or capital. A FinTech executive held that rules must come first, since without regulation, rails and capital cannot move while a FinTech founder held that infrastructure needs to exist before rules can meaningfully take shape. An Industry Association executive argued that Central Asia's five markets need shared rails and mutually recognised standards more than identical laws. A Central Bank official however, rejected the binary: capital, rules and infrastructure only create real value when they operate together, with interoperability as the true underlying constraint. Uzbekistan's national FinTech strategy for 2026-2030 centres on a payment switch, cloud infrastructure and consent-based open banking, with rules designed to let business models compete safely. Panellists called for a layered model where connectivity comes first, enabling embedded finance and eventually open finance on top. A banking executive observed that data sharing still raises real security and consent concerns. The panel highlighted that investable markets start with ambitious founders and returning diaspora, not dominant local incumbents alone and agreed that AI, cybersecurity and new business models will dominate the next year of growth in the region.

Last-mile micro-enterprises often lack collateral and credit histories, leaving traditional banks reluctant to lend. Most panellists held that embedded rails have moved the needle on both breadth and depth of access. A digital bank embedded within a marketplace is already using live merchant turnover data to price loans for more than 10,000 sellers. A leading payments platform, with over 24 million registered clients and 80,000 businesses is extending services into remote areas. A FinTech Founder highlighted how open finance enabled 500,000 new accounts to be opened within six months through everyday apps in the Philippines. A Financial Services executive noted that alternative data can establish creditworthiness where conventional assets cannot. A Central Bank official however, framed the most challenging question, asking the room to look beyond access: embedded finance is expanding reach, but usage, quality and transparency continue to lag. The regulator also flagged low formal savings and called for more accessible savings products. In a blue-ocean market, incentives and open data will determine whether capital truly reaches the hardest-to-serve communities.

The final panel of the day stress-tested Uzbekistan's goal of training 5,000 FinTech specialists by 2030. A Central Bank official identified training as the single greatest constraint in meeting this ambition, ahead of both the funding for this training and ensuring retention of the trained individuals. The official stressed applied skill, not classroom STEM alone, as the real gap that firms face. A FinTech executive countered that retention is what makes any training investment pay off, while an academic and research leader warned that FinTech talent is portable and leaves without clear career paths. The head of the Presidential Human Capital Foundation refused any split of the pipeline. Forecasting, training and retention sit on one path, and the national target means 5,000 career jobs not certificates. The room closed with a live call for at least six mentors to guide young Uzbek talent for a year and return to the stage next year to show what sustained guidance can produce.

The dialogue examined how national digital payment stacks can align with global financial corridors without surrendering monetary sovereignty, with trust, compliance and practical cross-border paths at the centre.

Discussants broadly agreed the technology is largely ready; the lack of regulatory interoperability across jurisdictions is the real constraint.

• Participants identified the lack of trust across jurisdictions as the core barrier to connectivity, with deeper know-your-transaction capabilities as one resolution.
• National stacks need not merge; a federated model with global minimum standards (payment data, settlement instructions, messaging standards) was seen as more viable.
• Stablecoins emerged as a key solution to cross-border connectivity, for instance, by acting as a bridge between local payment systems that can improve efficiency and reduce transaction costs. Lack of mutual recognition across borders was flagged as a significant source of friction reducing the efficiency of stablecoins.
• Some industry participants stressed the importance of flexible compliance and outcomes-based supervision to enable rapid innovation. In contrast, central bank participants asked industry for patience and simpler engagement, given regulators' need to remain accountable and cautious.
• Participants saw more promise in bilateral or regional initiatives to drive experimentation and corridor-building than in waiting for universal rules.
• A neutral convenor such as GFTN was seen as valuable for bringing together diverse stakeholders.