Two commercial banks in Uzbekistan received permission from the National Agency of Perspective Projects (NAPP) to issue plastic crypto cards.
As part of Uzbekistan’s NAPP initiative to create a special regulatory regime for the circulation of crypto-assets in the country, it became known that private bank Ravnaq Bank will release a prepaid cryptocurrency card.
The Uzbek crypto card will be called UzNEX. It’ll provide users with a bank account with access to a crypto exchange and an automated exchange mechanism. The card will be supported by one of the world’s leading payment systems, Mastercard.
Permission to issue a crypto card was earlier obtained by another member of the country’s special crypto market regulatory regime, KAPITALBANK. Both banks are scheduled to issue crypto cards by the end of December 2023.
The NAPP has registered three participants of the special regime. In addition to KAPITALBANK and Ravnaq Bank, UZINFOCOM takes part in the government’s initiative and is allowed to issue NFT certificates for domain names in the .uz zone.
The National Agency of Perspective Projects was initiated by the President of Uzbekistan in 2022. Its main purpose is to oversee the digital asset industry in the country and control crypto mining on the territory of the Republic. This year, the government restricted the granting of licenses to some cryptocurrency companies, including Binance, FTX, and Huobi.
Mastercard is actively exploring the market of cryptocurrency cards. Together with Binance, a prepaid crypto card was issued in Brazil, and with the support of the crypto platform BitOasis, a cryptocurrency card for residents of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) was released.
