Banks in Uzbekistan will no longer be allowed to drain bank accounts "to zero." A new mandatory minimum balance has been introduced to protect cardholders.
According to the Uzcard payment system, as of April 15, financial institutions performing automatic (pre-authorized) withdrawals for loans, installments, micro-loans, or other liabilities must leave at least three Base Calculating Amounts (currently 1,236,000 soums) on the card.
This means that even if a customer has outstanding debt, funds will only be deducted from the amount exceeding this established threshold, ensuring the card balance is never completely wiped out. The payment system, in coordination with member banks, has already implemented the necessary technical updates to support this change.
However, this rule does not apply to transactions initiated by the customer—such as when a user manually enters card details and confirms a payment with a one-time password (OTP). In those instances, the full amount can still be debited.
While this restriction is set at the payment system level, Uzcard is the first to officially announce the move. Humo is expected to follow suit with a similar announcement in the near future.
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