Send & Receive Payments in Tajikistan via Korti Milli Card with Echo Money

Korti Milli significantly outpaces international card networks within Tajikistan itself. National Bank data from mid-2025 put Korti Milli's direct share at roughly 52 percent of all cards in circulation, with Express Pay-Korti Milli and UnionPay-Korti Milli co-badged variants adding another 21 percent combined, meaning well over 70 percent of Tajik cards carry the Korti Milli network in some form. Visa, by comparison, held about 15 percent and Mastercard around 5 percent of cards nationally. This gap exists because almost every bank branch, ATM, and point-of-sale terminal in Tajikistan accepts Korti Milli commission-free for domestic transactions, while international cards are more commonly used for travel or cross-border purchases rather than everyday local spending. For a business targeting Tajik consumers specifically, Korti Milli acceptance reaches a far larger share of the population than relying on Visa or Mastercard alone would, particularly outside the capital, Dushanbe.

To a limited but growing extent, mainly through Korti Milli's integration with Russia's Mir payment system rather than broad international acceptance on its own. Since 2020, Amonat Bank has worked with Mir to let Korti Milli cardholders transact in Russia and other countries where Mir is accepted, and Mir cardholders can likewise use Tajik Korti Milli infrastructure when visiting Tajikistan, a cooperation driven partly by the large Tajik labor migrant population working in Russia. Outside this Mir-linked corridor and the co-badged UnionPay cards some banks issue, Korti Milli itself isn't accepted internationally the way Visa or Mastercard are, so Tajik residents who travel or shop internationally more broadly typically still rely on a separate international card for that purpose, using Korti Milli mainly for domestic spending, salary and pension payments, and local merchant transactions instead, which remains its primary role.

Yes, by a meaningful margin, even as card ownership has grown quickly. National Bank of Tajikistan data from the first half of 2025 showed that cash withdrawals still accounted for roughly 72 percent of all activity on bank cards and e-wallets, against just 28 percent spent directly on non-cash purchases of goods and services. This means that for many Tajik cardholders, the card still functions primarily as a way to access cash from an ATM rather than to pay directly at a terminal, even though nearly 1.9 million new cards were issued in just a year, a 20.5 percent increase. For businesses, this suggests that while Korti Milli's reach is extensive on paper, encouraging actual non-cash payment at checkout may still require incentives or habit-building beyond simply accepting the card, since the underlying customer behavior still skews heavily toward cash rather than digital spending.

Yes. Echo Money supports Korti Milli as a payout method in Tajikistan, letting businesses send Tajik somoni directly to recipients' Korti Milli cards, which make up the majority of cards held in the country, without setting up a relationship with Amonat Bank or individual domestic banks. This is useful for paying contractors, freelancers, suppliers, and remote staff in Tajikistan, where the national card reaches far more people than Visa or Mastercard. Businesses fund payouts in major global currencies or stablecoins, and Echo Money handles the conversion to somoni, delivery to the card, and confirmation once each payout lands. Echo Money's Korti Milli coverage is payout-only, so it is not used to collect card payments from Tajik customers.