Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- In 2018 and 4 months of 2019, individuals purchased foreign currency totaling more than US$1.2 billion, the Central Bank of Uzbekistan said.

Introduced in April 2018, banking service for the sale of foreign currency to individuals through mobile applications (online conversion) has become very popular among the population.

About US$432.3 million, or 36%, of currency purchases were carried out with online conversion service. In general, from April 2018 to April 2019, the monthly share of online conversion increased from 9% to 63%. At the same time, a sharp increase in the share of online conversion in the total purchase volume has been observed since January 2019.

The Central Bank will continue to continue to expand the types of banking services and increase their availability and quality, based on international best practices.