Payment system of Turkmenistan

The non-cash payments of Turkmenistan are performed via the payment system of the Central Bank of Turkmenistan (CBT), as well as the banks use their internal payment systems to effect payments between the bank branches.

The Central Bank of Turkmenistan plays a particular role in the payment system of Turkmenistan. While operating its own payment system, the CBT coordinates and regulates the settlement relations all over the country, monitors the activity of interbank payment systems by defining the main principles of their functioning, establishing the rules, terms, forms and standards for non-cash settlements, as well as it organizes the cash circulation.

The CBT develops the statistical reporting rules and procedures for the payment system to make it much more transparent.

The legal framework of the payment system of Turkmenistan involves mainly the Civil Code of Turkmenistan, the laws “On Central Bank of Turkmenistan”, “On credit institutions and banking”, the regulatory acts of the Central Bank of Turkmenistan.

The relations between the CBT and its clients, as well as between the commercial banks and their clients are governed by the correspondent account (sub account) agreement or bank account agreement.

The CBT informs the commercial banks on all changes inserted in the legal regulatory acts and on the decisions taken with respect to further engineering modification of the payment system of Turkmenistan.

The CBT pays special attention to further improvement and development of the relevant legal framework for the Turkmenistan payment system functioning.

Each commercial bank must open a correspondent account with the Central Bank of Turkmenistan to transfer payments through the CBT payment system.

The individual and corporate clients open their accounts as a rule with the commercial banks and, in certain cases specified in the law, with the Central Bank of Turkmenistan.

The CBT Operational Department and 12 commercial banks are the participants of the payment system of Turkmenistan. Rather big quantity of payments goes via the CBT payment system, first due to its efficient, continuous functioning, and also because the using by the banks of their funds placed with the CBT at zero credit risk will minimize their financial risks.

The payment system of Turkmenistan is the gross payments system, i.e. the settlements on all payments are effected upon the participants’ accounts on an individual basis.

The Central Bank of Turkmenistan is working now to increase the efficiency of the payment system functioning, firstly through introduction of the system of electronic payments. When effecting the electronic payments via the CBT payment system, the payment documents of respective format are used, which require additional presentation of hard copies. The plastic cards, including those issued by the banks in Turkmenistan, are used for performing the non-cash retail payments and receiving the cash. The payment cards are issued in the banks. For the purpose of further consistent improvement of the payment system, the CBT is doing a job to introduce the RTGS system.