DIGITAL PAYMENTS TRANSFORMATION IN UZBEKISTAN: FROM PHYSICAL PAYMENT INFRASTRUCTURE TO TRANSACTION INTENSITY
Kalit so‘zlar:
digital payments; payment infrastructure; transaction intensity; point-of-sale terminals; accounting decomposition.Annotatsiya
Payment-system development can occur through expansion of installed acceptance infrastructure or greater transaction activity relative to that infrastructure. This study examines how these margins shaped real terminal-turnover growth in Uzbekistan during 2018-2025. Using annual Central Bank payment statistics, nominal turnover is converted to constant 2018 prices and analysed through an exact logarithmic accounting decomposition separating changes associated with the installed POS-terminal stock, cards per POS terminal, and real turnover per issued card. The decomposition is descriptive rather than causal. In 2018-2021, real turnover grew by 0.197 log points, while the POS-stock component was +0.571, indicating that infrastructure expanded faster than real turnover. In 2021-2025, real turnover grew by 1.042 log points, while the POS-stock component was nearly zero (-0.006) and the combined utilisation-related component was +1.048. Within the latter, cards per POS accounted for +0.930 and real turnover per issued card for +0.118. The findings demonstrate the importance of monitoring payment-infrastructure utilisation alongside infrastructure stocks.
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