Uzbekistan opened the inaugural Silk Road Finance & Technology Forum in Tashkent, where the Central Bank unveiled a Fintech Innovation Hub, a venture fund, a 5,000-person training program with Singapore/GFTN, and a coming CBDC white paper.

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Tashkent, 24 August 2026: The inaugural Silk Road Finance & Technology Forum opened in Tashkent today, and the Central Bank of Uzbekistan used the stage to unveil a cluster of new initiatives aimed at turning the country into Central Asia's fintech gateway. The forum, co-hosted with the Global Finance & Technology Network (GFTN), runs through 26 August and has drawn central bank governors, ministry officials, and industry figures from Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, alongside representatives from the IMF and World Bank.

Speakers returned to Al-Khwarizmi's Kitab al-Jabr, the ninth-century work from present-day Uzbekistan that gave the world algebra, framing the meeting point of knowledge, commerce and finance as part of the country's DNA. Al-jabr, “the first operation,” became the metaphor for the forum's balancing act: bringing parts together across five priorities spanning open banking, digital assets, cross-border payments, Islamic finance, and innovation and investment.

Central Bank Governor Timur Ishmetov made the economic case for the corridor, pointing to steady GDP growth of around 6% a year, cashless payments now at 57% of transactions and rising, and an economy where roughly half of activity comes from SMEs. With a median age of 29, the country is betting on a young, digital-native population.

He then turned announcements into headlines stating that The Central Bank is launching a Fintech Innovation Hub that will take its first cohort of resident startups in the fourth quarter of 2026, offering incubation, acceleration, regulatory guidance and pilot testing. Ishmetov said the bank has set up a dedicated venture fund and is in talks with international fund managers to build a pipeline from the hub toward international scaling and co-investment. A program to train 5,000 young people in fintech will run with Singaporean universities and GFTN, with the first cohort starting by year-end. Uzbekistan will also publish a white paper on a central bank digital currency, covering use cases, design options and trade-offs. Ishmetov framed all of it as a single strategy built on innovation, regulation, modern infrastructure, and access to talent and capital.

The rest of the morning stayed on payments. A panel on connecting Central Asia to global markets brought together former Mastercard Asia-Pacific president Ari Sarker, Razorpay's Arif Khan and Anchorage Digital's Sergio Mello, while a following session on “trusted rails” for cross-border Silk Road commerce added Nium founder Prajit Nanu and Visa's regional fintech lead, alongside local players HUMO and PAYNET.