The Central Bank of Uzbekistan is changing the rules for handling consumer complaints. Starting September 4, 2026, commercial banks will have to resolve isolated customer issues while simultaneously identifying systemic failures in their processes and approving formalized plans to eliminate them.
What happened
The regulator amended the regulation on minimum requirements for bank interactions with consumers. The document introduces a new concept to the regulatory framework: “systemic flaw.”
This is a failure or error that goes beyond an isolated case and leads to a mass violation of customer rights in similar contracts, products, or business processes. As Spot.uz reports citing the Central Bank’s resolution, when reviewing complaints, a bank must now eliminate the root cause of the problem, rather than simply reacting to a specific application.
To control this process, a unified action plan format is being introduced. The bank’s management board must record the nature of the flaw, the responsible executives, and the repair deadlines.
The Central Bank also defined seven strict criteria under which a bank will be considered a violator. These include:
- the action plan is not approved;
- execution deadlines are missed;
- the problem persists even after formal execution of the plan;
- the internal audit service did not verify the work results;
- the management and supervisory boards do not receive quarterly reports on the fixes.
Reporting is also becoming stricter. Banks must send the Central Bank copies of board decisions on complaints within three working days, and report the elimination of each systemic bug within five days.
Country and market
With the growing digitalization of Uzbekistan’s financial sector, the cost of a product error increases. An app glitch, incorrect fee calculation, or credit scoring error instantly scales to thousands of users. The current changes show the regulator is no longer willing to tolerate a situation where banks simply pay compensation to the most persistent customers while leaving a broken process running.
Why it matters
The new rules force banks to rebuild internal compliance and audit. Every complaint can now trigger a review of an entire business process.
The regulator is shifting responsibility for service quality from frontline support operators to the management and supervisory boards.
What’s next
Market participants have until September 4 to adapt their internal regulations. The main challenge for banks will be setting up interaction between the support service, which sees complaints first, and the product teams, which must promptly fix systemic flaws.