Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- On 1 May 2019, the Uzbek banks, participating in the HUMO Payment System, began issuing cards for the population. Residents of Tashkent will be the first to make contactless payments with HUMO cards.

A pilot series of cards was issued in April 2019 for employees of the Central Bank and about 20 banks of Uzbekistan to test the system. As previously reported, over 47,000 HUMO terminals with NFC modules have already been installed in Tashkent.

By the end of the year, it is planned to cover other regions and provide all the trade and service enterprises of the country. Now Tashkent residents can make contactless and non-pin payments by simply attaching the card to the terminal. You do not need to enter a PIN when making purchases of up to 50,000 soums.

“The essence of contactless payments is, first of all, convenience. All our terminals and cards are equipped with NFC-modules. This means that a consumer can make purchases with just a touch of a card. We do not want people to hand over their cards to cashiers and voice their PIN codes. Indeed, in essence, voicing at least one digit of a bank card number is already access to personal information. To do this, all of our fixed terminals are equipped with a remote keyboard, where you can dial the PIN yourself,”explained the director of the NPC Shuhrat Kurbanov.

Also, the director of the NPC, said that by the end of the year it is planned to make HUMO accessible for the whole country. Opening cards for crediting wages will be free of charge, and the cost of other cards will depend on the tariffs of each bank. Other cards include credit, overdraft and other cards.

To open a HUMO card, the people need to contact any branch of the participating bank in the city of Tashkent.