Central Bank of Uzbekistan Fines Banks and MFIs for Consumer Rights Violations

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — The Central Bank of the Republic of Uzbekistan continues systematic work aimed at ensuring the protection of the rights and legitimate interests of consumers of financial services.

Based on the results of comprehensive inspection audits conducted in the first quarter of the current year, the regulator identified numerous violations of relevant legislation by a number of commercial banks and microfinance organizations (MFIs), resulting in the administrative and financial liability of the offending structures.

A wide range of violations was recorded during targeted inspections at the MFIs Shaffof-moliya and Tezcoin, as well as at JSC Uzum Bank. In the microfinance organizations, specialists identified instances of non-compliance with the limits on the allowable debt burden of citizens when issuing microloans, disregard for the established procedure for reviewing official appeals, concealment of mandatory information in the texts of microcredit agreements, and delays in transmitting credit history information to relevant bureaus. In turn, the audit at Uzum Bank confirmed a deficit in information disclosure on its website, violations in handling client complaints, untimely updating of data in credit bureaus, and the inclusion of terms contradicting the law in agreements.

Taking into account the scale of the deficiencies, the regulator imposed monetary fines: Uzum Bank was fined 215.5 million soums, MFI Shaffof-moliya was fined 201 million soums, and MFI Tezcoin was fined 156 million soums.

Concurrently, the Central Bank studied citizens' complaints regarding the activities of Ipoteka-bank. The supervisory service established that the bank improperly debited funds to repay loans from client cards before the scheduled payment date, and also practiced unaccepted withdrawal of money (without the owner's consent) in the absence of such a clause in the contract. Additionally, the bank delayed the timeline for removing encumbrances from collateralized property in the state registry of pledges. For these violations, a fine of 105 million soums was imposed on Ipoteka-bank.

In addition to direct inspections, the regulator utilized the "mystery shopper" monitoring method during the first quarter to check the transparency of operations at regional bank branches. These activities revealed systemic problems regarding the completeness and accuracy of advice provided to citizens. Following the results of the audits conducted via the "mystery shopper" method, the Central Bank fined a total of 14 commercial banks an aggregate amount of 681.5 million soums. At the same time, the largest penal sanctions were applied to two financial institutions: Agrobank will pay 255 million soums to the budget, and O'zsanoatqurilishbank will pay 119.5 million soums.