Choosing payment providers for CIS and the Caucasus: what to ask in each market

A merchant expanding east from Europe or Turkey often treats Central Asia and the Caucasus as one region with one provider. The first month of traffic says otherwise. Kazakh shoppers look for Kaspi, Uzbek shoppers pay with Humo or Uzcard inside a wallet app, Tajik cards on the national scheme cannot be used abroad at all, and in Georgia most people simply pay with a card from a local bank.

This article sets out the questions to ask payment providers in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, with the facts behind them, a comparison table and a worked scorecard. For why local routes matter, see local vs cross-border acquiring; for how many providers to hold, see how many PSPs per market.

What should you ask every provider in CIS and the Caucasus?

Start with seven questions that apply everywhere, then add the market questions below.

1. Which domestic schemes do you process natively? Kaspi, Humo, Uzcard, Elcart, Korti Milli and ArCa each need a local connection. “We accept cards” usually means Visa and Mastercard only.
2. Where do you acquire, country by country? A local acquirer and a cross-border one can give different results with the same card. Ask for each market, not for “the CIS”.
3. Which wallets and QR payments do you reach? Payme, Click, Idram, m10 and national QR standards sit on top of cards in several of these markets.
4. In which currency do you charge and settle, and when do you convert? Ask for the FX margin, the conversion date and how funds leave the country.
5. What do you need from us? Some routes need a local entity or bank account, and every provider runs its own KYC on the merchant. Ask for the document list before the commercial talks.
6. How do refunds and payouts work per scheme? A provider can support payments on a domestic scheme but not refunds or card payouts to it.
7. Where do you store our customers’ data? Some markets in the region have local storage rules. Our article on data localisation in CIS payments covers what to check.

What should you ask in Kazakhstan?

Whether the provider reaches Kaspi as well as international cards. The National Bank of Kazakhstan counted 84.0 million payment cards on 1 August 2026: 40.7 million Visa, 28.4 million on the local system it lists under Kaspi.kz, and 14.1 million Mastercard. QR payments are large too: 2.34 billion transactions worth about KZT 11.8 trillion from January to July 2026, on the same statistics.

A card form alone misses the local system. Kaspi is reached through providers that hold a Kaspi connection. Antom’s documentation, for example, lists Kaspi for buyers in Kazakhstan and merchant entities in Singapore, Hong Kong, the EEA, the UK and the US, processed in KZT, up to KZT 1,000,000 per payment, with a 10-minute default timeout, refunds for 365 days and no chargebacks. So ask: which of our entities can you onboard, what are your limits and timeouts, and in which currency do you settle? Our article on Kaspi in Kazakhstan covers the checkout itself, and the Kazakhstan guide the market.

What should you ask in Uzbekistan?

Whether the provider processes both domestic schemes. Kun.uz, citing the Central Bank of Uzbekistan, reports more than 68.27 million bank cards in circulation on 1 January 2026, nearly double the level three years earlier. The country has two domestic schemes, Humo and Uzcard, and shoppers often pay through wallet apps such as Payme and Click that sit on top of those cards.

The questions follow from that. Does the provider reach Humo and Uzcard, or only one of them? Does it offer Payme and Click as wallet methods? Can it pay refunds and marketplace payouts back to both schemes? And how does it get UZS proceeds to you: through which local partner, in which currency and on what schedule? The Uzbekistan guide covers tax and consumer rules.

What should you ask in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan?

Whether the provider acquires the national scheme locally. In Kyrgyzstan, the National Bank’s report for the fourth quarter of 2025 counts 9.92 million bank cards at the end of 2025: 7.28 million Visa (73.3%) and 2.57 million Elcart (25.9%). Twenty-one commercial banks issued and acquired Elcart, against 15 for international systems. The Interbank Processing Centre, the sole operator of Elcart, says it introduced 3-D Secure and connected all Elcart cards to it in 2023. QR is the growth rail: the same report shows 200.1 million QR payments worth KGS 357.1 billion through the ELQR interaction operator in the fourth quarter of 2025, 5.9 times the number a year earlier.

In Tajikistan, Korti Milli is the national scheme, and it is domestic. Alif Bank says its Korti Milli card cannot be used abroad and points customers to its Visa and Mastercard cards instead. The National Bank of Tajikistan counted 12.4 million bank payment cards and 19.8 million e-wallets on 30 June 2026, and electronic instruments carried 41% of payments for goods and services in the first half of 2026. Ask a provider for a Tajik acquiring connection for Korti Milli, which wallets it reaches, and how it settles TJS. See the Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan guides.

What should you ask in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia?

In Armenia, whether the acquirer accepts ArCa cards. The Central Bank of Armenia describes ArCa as the card system introduced by Armenian banks and the Central Bank in 2001, owned and operated by Armenian Card, with e-commerce among its services. Armenian Card also processes Visa, Mastercard and other international cards for banks. Add Idram for shoppers who pay from the wallet. The Armenia guide has the details.

In Azerbaijan, international cards issued by local banks carry most online spending, as our Azerbaijan guide explains, so the questions are about local acquiring in AZN, approval by issuer, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and wallets such as m10.

In Georgia, cards from Georgian banks dominate, and account-based payments are newer. The National Bank of Georgia’s open banking registry lists 15 banks and a growing set of non-bank payment initiation providers. Keepz was approved on 12 July 2024. Ask whether the provider acquires locally in GEL and whether it offers pay-by-bank or QR next to cards. The Georgia guide covers the rest.

How do the markets compare?

Market	Domestic scheme or rail	First question for a provider	Watch out for
Kazakhstan	Kaspi.kz, QR	Do you reach Kaspi, for which of our entities?	Per-payment limits, short timeouts, no chargebacks
Uzbekistan	Humo, Uzcard, Payme, Click	Do you process both Humo and Uzcard?	Payouts on one scheme only
Kyrgyzstan	Elcart, ELQR	Do you acquire Elcart locally?	Visa-only coverage
Tajikistan	Korti Milli, e-wallets	Do you have a Tajik acquiring connection?	Korti Milli cards cannot be used abroad
Armenia	ArCa, Idram	Do you accept ArCa cards?	Acquirers that take only international cards
Azerbaijan	Local-issued Visa and Mastercard, m10	Do you acquire locally in AZN?	Approval gaps by issuer
Georgia	Georgian bank cards, pay-by-bank	Do you acquire locally in GEL?	Missing wallets and pay-by-bank

Worked example: a scorecard for three markets

Example figures, for illustration only.

An online electronics store launches in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Georgia. It expects 50% of regional volume from Kazakhstan, 30% from Uzbekistan and 20% from Georgia, and it sends the questions above to three providers, called A, B and C here.

Question	Provider A	Provider B	Provider C
Kazakhstan: Kaspi and local cards	Yes	No	Yes
Uzbekistan: Humo and Uzcard	No	Yes, both	Uzcard only
Georgia: local acquiring in GEL	Yes	No	No
Settlement	USD, weekly	USD, twice a month	EUR, weekly
Needs a local entity	No	No	No
Share of expected volume on a native route	70%	30%	50%

The last row is the sum of the markets each provider covers natively: A covers Kazakhstan (50%) and Georgia (20%), so 70%; B covers Uzbekistan, so 30%; C covers Kazakhstan, so 50%, because Uzcard alone does not cover the Uzbek market. A and B together reach 100% of expected volume. C adds a second Kaspi route for the market that carries half of the volume. Provider C alone might have looked attractive on price, but every Humo card in Uzbekistan would have failed.

What are the common mistakes?

• Asking about “CIS coverage”. Ask country by country and scheme by scheme; Kaspi, Humo, Uzcard, Elcart, Korti Milli and ArCa are separate connections.
• Counting one Uzbek scheme as the market. A provider with Uzcard but not Humo leaves a large part of Uzbek cards without a route.
• Sending Korti Milli cards to a foreign acquirer. The card is domestic, so the payment cannot succeed; it needs a local route.
• Ignoring QR and wallets. ELQR, Kaspi QR, Payme, Click and Idram are how many shoppers already pay.
• Forgetting refunds and payouts. Check that each scheme supports refunds and card payouts through the same provider before launch.
• Leaving data questions to the end. Local storage rules in some markets can change which provider and which setup you can use.

How does Omno help with CIS and Caucasus providers?

Omno can put the providers for each market behind one API. PSP eligibility rules by country, method, currency, customer group and customer verification level decide which providers may take each payment, so Humo, Kaspi or Elcart traffic only goes to providers that support it. Routing chooses among them. If a provider is unavailable or rejects the request, the payment moves to the next provider in the rule until one accepts. Reporting compares approval and decline reasons by provider, method and country. The smart routing and cascading page shows how the rules work.