Uzbekistan targets 5,000 fintech specialists by 2030

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — Uzbekistan aims to train 5,000 fintech specialists by 2030, while participants in a specialist session at the Silk Road Finance and Technology Forum in Tashkent identified retaining trained professionals in the country as a key challenge. The discussion took place on 25 August during the session “The School on the Silk Road: Demographic Dividend, or Demographic Debt?”

The session was moderated by Peter Francken, a professor at Keio University and founder of the Safecast project. Asked whether training, financing or talent retention was most important, former Central Bank of Kenya Governor Patrick Njoroge identified training as the main constraint, while saying the other two issues could be addressed through other means.

Laimin Chen, senior vice president and chief sustainability officer at Ant International, and Abdel Aziz Nosseir, executive director of the Egyptian Banking Institute, took a different view, identifying talent retention as the key factor. They noted that fintech professionals are in high demand worldwide and may leave for jobs abroad without clear career prospects.

Gulnoza Ismailova, executive director of the El-Yurt Umidi Foundation for training promising personnel under the President of Uzbekistan, said the foundation was reorganized in 2026 and now reports directly to the president.

According to Ismailova, the foundation conducts annual assessments of the staffing needs of government agencies and regions. It supports bachelor's, master's and doctoral studies at top-300 universities in about 30 countries, invites foreign lecturers and organizes dual-degree programs.

She said scholarship recipients had previously been required to return to work only in the public sector. The requirement now also covers companies that are major taxpayers and IT Park residents, expanding employment opportunities for people who study abroad.

Ismailova said the main challenge was determining which specialists should make up the target of 5,000 people, including engineers, cybersecurity specialists, data specialists, regulators and policymakers.

Drawing on Kenya's experience with the introduction of mobile money about 20 years ago, Njoroge said practical workplace training was critical alongside traditional university education. Many graduates have degrees but are not prepared for real-world tasks without additional practical experience, he said.

Njoroge also said the departure of specialists abroad should not necessarily be viewed as a loss. Professionals who leave can acquire new skills and later return to train others and take on higher-level positions, or become members of the diaspora who establish companies in their home country or act as links to overseas markets.

Chen said Ant International runs the “10 by 1000” programme, under which the company committed to training at least 1,000 digital leaders annually for at least 10 years. About 10,000 people in 110 countries and regions have been trained through the programme since 2018, she said.

She added that company representatives met with the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Uzbekistan on the sidelines of the forum to discuss launching the programme in Uzbekistan.

Nosseir outlined a three-level approach used by the Egyptian Banking Institute. For future senior executives, the institute uses psychometric testing followed by a year of training and overseas internships. For a broader audience, it provides a free online financial literacy platform accessible through a national identity document. Current banking employees receive competency-based training, with the required competencies reviewed every three years based on surveys of banks' human resources directors about skills that will be needed in the coming years.

He advised countries establishing similar institutions to include not only training but also mentoring, assessment and employment support from the outset, while establishing governance and stakeholder relationships before operations begin.

At the end of the session, Francken announced the launch of his own mentoring initiative and invited participants in the room to mentor talented young people in Uzbekistan for a year, with a report to be presented at next year's forum.