Uzbekistan’s Central Bank Orders Banks to Audit Post-Judgment Loan Charges and Repay Borrowers

Uzbekistan’s Central Bank has ordered every commercial bank in the country to audit interest and penalty accruals on loans where courts have already issued debt-recovery judgments — and to repay borrowers any sums collected unlawfully after those rulings.

The directive, issued by the Central Bank’s Banking Supervision Committee, rests on a straightforward legal requirement that has apparently been widely ignored. Under Article 744, Part 3 of the Civil Code, once a court hands down a judgment specifying an amount to be recovered, the bank must stop adding interest, fines and penalties to that figure. The adjudicated sum is fixed; it cannot grow through subsequent accruals. The Central Bank’s intervention suggests that a significant number of banks have continued charging borrowers precisely that way.

What Banks Must Do and When

The Supervision Committee has placed responsibility squarely on supervisory boards and management boards of commercial banks. Each institution’s internal audit service must complete a review of all loans carrying court judgments and determine whether interest and penalty accruals were halted as the law requires. That work must be finished by 10 December 2026, with findings — including any violations identified — reported back to the bank’s own governing bodies.

Where unlawful accruals are discovered, banks are required to reverse them. Any amounts already collected from borrowers on that basis must be returned promptly. Management boards then have until 25 December 2026 to submit detailed reports to the Central Bank documenting what was found, what was corrected and how much money was refunded, supported by documentary evidence.

Recourse for Affected Borrowers

The Central Bank has opened a direct channel for borrowers who believe they have been overcharged. Complaints can be lodged through the regulator’s contact centre on 71 200 00 44 or the short number 18 00, or via the Telegram bot operating under the name Bankda nima gap?

The episode underlines a recurring tension in Uzbekistan’s banking sector between the formal legal framework governing debt recovery and actual bank practice. By setting hard deadlines for both the audit and the reporting cycle, the Central Bank is signalling that voluntary compliance with a decade-old civil-code provision has been insufficient and that supervisory follow-through is now expected.