Fintech group Alif has raised $10 million to develop installment plans in Uzbekistan.
The company will direct the raised funds to expand its Alif Nasiya service. The investment comes two years before major regulatory changes that will reshape the country’s consumer lending market.
The parties structured the deal based on the mudaraba principle. This is an Islamic finance partnership model: one party provides the capital, and the other manages the business processes. Under this scheme, there is no fixed interest rate, and income is generated from the project’s actual results.
According to the company, Alif has raised a total of over $300 million in debt and equity investments during its operations in Uzbekistan. The new tranche will go toward increasing the portfolio of available goods and connecting new retail chains to the installment system.
Currently, the BNPL (buy now, pay later) market in Uzbekistan operates under relatively lenient rules. The situation will change on January 1, 2027, when the country introduces a system of licensed installment service operators. All current players will have to obtain special permits and align their processes with the Central Bank’s new requirements.
Injecting capital two years before the rules change allows large services to aggressively increase their market share before new regulatory barriers cut off smaller competitors.
The transition to licensing will inevitably lead to standardized scoring and transparent conditions for consumers. For Alif, the current funding is a way to secure its position as a leading local operator before competition shifts from marketing to regulatory compliance.
