Octobank has expanded its online acquiring capabilities for partners — payments via the Apple Pay and Google Pay services are now available on websites and in apps. The customer simply needs to confirm the payment on their smartphone, the bank’s press service said.
The launch came at a period when the Uzbek market had already come close to working with global digital wallets. The framework is set by Law No. ZRU-1125 of 26 March 2026, which came into force on 27 March: it clarified which categories of personal data must remain within the country and which may be processed outside it provided that security requirements are fulfilled. In late July, the Central Bank reported that, after the amendments were adopted, the regulator had begun talks with Apple and Google together with banks and the national operators Humo and Uzcard.
The environment in which such services become necessary is developing in parallel. Over five years, e-commerce in Uzbekistan has grown 22-fold in volume, and the number of e-commerce platforms rose from 36 at the beginning of 2024 to 115 by the start of 2026. The higher the share of online purchases, the more costly every additional step during payment becomes — especially where the customer decides quickly, as in the case of tickets.
“The ability to pay for a plane ticket in literally a few taps on your smartphone is no longer just an extra option, but an essential part of modern service. It is important for us that some of the first to adopt this solution were major companies from the aviation and travel industries. This is a good example of how payment technologies can make the customer’s journey from choosing a service to paying for it far simpler,” stated Vladimir Vasilyev, Managing Director for Cross-Border Money Transfers and E-commerce at Octobank.
Among the first major companies to enable the new payment option were Uzbekistan Airways and Centrum Air — their passengers can already pay for air tickets with digital wallets. Thanks to data tokenization, the real card details are not disclosed to the merchant.
“Thanks to this solution, our customers can now pay for air tickets via Apple Pay and Google Pay without having to enter their bank card details manually. This is another step towards improving the online purchasing process. We value our cooperation with Octobank and its contribution to the development of modern digital payment solutions for Uzbekistan’s aviation industry,” the press service of Uzbekistan Airways stated.
In itself, this expansion of digital services is not the bank’s first this year. Back in August, Octobank provided legal entities with conversion operations and payments in 16 key currencies, covering the UAE, China, Singapore, the eurozone countries, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. For companies, this meant settlements with foreign counterparties directly in the currency of the foreign trade contract. A day earlier, transfers between Uzbekistan and Turkey, China, Israel and Tajikistan became available to clients of the bank’s partner financial institutions. Octobank itself has been present on the market since June 2001.
Apple Pay and Google Pay are available within Octobank’s online acquiring and can be enabled by companies that accept payments online.
