According to Jamshid Usmanov, head of the Central Bank's Payment Systems Development Department, Apple Pay and Google Pay may begin operating in Uzbekistan in the coming months.
According to Jamshid Usmanov, head of the Central Bank's Payment Systems Development Department, Apple Pay and Google Pay may begin operating in Uzbekistan in the coming months.
Usmanov reported that after amendments were made to the country's personal data legislation, the Central Bank, together with commercial banks and national payment systems Humo and Uzcard, began negotiations with Apple and Google, and has started the technical integration of these services.
Commercial banks are actively working on the integration, including resolving technical issues related to bank card tokenization. The project covers not only cards issued by international payment systems Visa and Mastercard. Furthermore, an official representative of the Central Bank noted that work is underway to enable the addition of Humo and Uzcard cards to Apple Pay and Google Pay.
The Central Bank expects positive results from this project within the next couple of months. Usmanov added that initially, one or several commercial banks might launch the services, although a launch by one of the national payment operators is also possible.
The official representative of the Central Bank also confirmed that meetings with representatives of Apple and Google took place in April and May of this year.
On March 26, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed amendments to the Personal Data Law. These changes abolished the requirement to store all personal data on servers located in Uzbekistan. This requirement remains only for biometric and genetic data, as well as information concerning telecommunications operator subscribers. All other personal data can be processed outside of Uzbekistan, provided the conditions established by law are met.
The American company Apple has once again taken the position of the world's most valuable public corporation, according to the latest data from the Nasdaq stock exchange in the United States.
The smartphone manufacturer managed to overtake its predecessor in the ranking—the technology giant Nvidia. Previously, Nvidia held the first place amid the global growth of interest in artificial intelligence technologies.
During the trading session, Apple's shares increased by 0.2%, reaching a price of $333.94 per share. At the peak of trading, the stock value rose to $334.03, providing a gain of 0.23%. Thanks to this growth, Apple's market capitalization reached a record high of $4.9 trillion.
In the ranking of the world's most expensive companies, Nvidia is in second place, with a value of $4.83 trillion. Third place is held by the Alphabet holding, which manages Google, and its valuation reaches $4.190 trillion.
Furthermore, Apple intends to significantly increase the cost of its flagship gadgets. This is being done to compensate for the sharp increase in component costs, which arose due to global shortages and high demand from neural network operators. For example, it is expected that the price of the basic version of the iPhone 18 Pro may rise to $1,299.
