From ‘Unscorable’ to Bankable: ETCITA Turns Uzbek SME Data into Fair Credit

AI-native Financial OS aims to close Uzbekistan’s $11.8B MSME credit gap by rewarding “white & digital” businesses with cheaper, faster loans.

Uzbekistan’s 1.2 million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) generate more than half of national GDP, yet most still struggle to access affordable credit. An estimated US$11.8 billion in MSME financing demand remains unmet, while many firms pay commercial interest rates of 23–36% and are asked to pledge collateral worth at least 125% of the loan they seek.

This is not because Uzbekistan lacks capital. It is because the financial system lacks trusted data.

Despite rapid digitisation of tax, payments and e-invoicing, SME financials in practice remain fragmented across cash, spreadsheets, 1C and multiple government and bank portals. Banks see only a partial, sometimes inconsistent picture of a firm’s true cash flow. In a zero-tolerance compliance regime where even small discrepancies can trigger significant fines or account blocks many business owners feel that “going white and digital” only increases scrutiny without improving their access to capital.

Tashkent-based startup ETCITA is betting that the opposite can be true: that if SMEs are willing to keep clean, digital books, the system should reward them with cheaper, faster and more predictable credit.

“Uzbekistan does not have a capital problem; it has a data problem,” says founder Mayer Aziz. “If SMEs give the system real, high-quality data, that system must give something tangible back: better credit, on better terms, delivered faster.”

Turning compliance data into a credit passport

ETCITA describes itself as an AI-native Financial OS for Uzbek SMEs. The cloud platform connects bank feeds, tax data and e-invoices into a single “white & digital” ledger, using AI to automate posting and reconciliation so that up to 80% of routine accounting work disappears from the accountant’s plate.

On top of this ledger, ETCITA builds a cash-flow “telemetry layer” that tracks real turnover, payment discipline and obligations in near real time. This telemetry feeds AORTA, ETCITA’s cash-flow–based risk engine, which is being designed so banks and MFIs can underwrite SMEs on the strength of their business performance not just buildings and cars.

The governance model behind this is explicit: SMEs that agree to go fully white and digital on ETCITA, and to share their telemetry with participating lenders, are placed in a “fast lane” for working-capital decisions. In pilots the company is structuring with local banks, the goal is to move from weeks of paperwork and site visits to days and, eventually, minutes for many credit decisions, while enabling lenders to safely expand unsecured or lightly secured lending based on verified cash flows.

For policymakers, the same data can also support national objectives around financial inclusion, Islamic finance and shadow-economy reduction by aligning access to finance with transparency rather than pure collateral.

The SME reality ETCITA is tackling

The typical Uzbek SME today works across six to eight systems: Soliq for tax, one or more e-invoice operators, several bank portals, 1C on the desktop, and Excel. Closing the books can take 12–20 days each month, with accountants re-typing the same data again and again.

On the credit side, banks must manually tie together account statements, PDFs, tax reports and stamped paper documents to form a view of risk. This process can take four to eight weeks and still leaves lenders uncomfortable relying on those accounts for unsecured lending. Many SMEs, particularly younger and service-oriented firms without real-estate assets, either give up or fall back on expensive informal capital.

ETCITA’s thesis is that if this operational and compliance data is captured once at the source, standardised and scored, both sides of the market win:

• SMEs gain a credible, continuously updated “credit passport” built from their real cash flows and tax-compliant invoices, giving them a path to fairer rates and longer tenors.
• Banks and MFIs gain a new risk lens on previously “unscorable” customers, reducing manual underwriting workload and information asymmetry while staying inside the regulator’s expectations.
• Government and regulators gain cleaner data for supervision and an economic incentive for SMEs to formalise, helping shrink the shadow economy without adding new penalties.

Empowering accountants as inclusion partners

A distinctive feature of ETCITA’s strategy is its focus on accountants as the primary distribution and governance channel. Independent accountants in Uzbekistan are often de-facto CFOs for 10–15 small clients, but are paid like data-entry operators and spend most of their time reconciling portals instead of advising on growth or financing.

By automating the repetitive work and standardising ledgers, ETCITA aims to help these professionals manage more clients and move up-market into “credit-ready accounting” and CFO-as-a-service offerings while acting as the trusted human layer that explains to SMEs how going white and digital translates into better access to capital.

Waitlist opens across Uzbekistan

ETCITA is currently rolling out its Financial OS in controlled waves and has opened a public waitlist for SMEs, accountants and lenders nationwide.

The initial cohorts focus on:

• SMEs prepared to operate fully white and digital and interested in becoming bank-ready;
• Accountants and CFOs who want to build higher-value, advisory-driven practices on top of AI tools;
• Banks, MFIs and development partners seeking low-risk pilots in cash-flow-based lending and Islamic-finance–friendly structures.

Interested companies can request early access and an interview slot at https://www.etcita.com/contact

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About ETCITA

ETCITA is an AI-native Financial OS built in Uzbekistan for Uzbek SMEs, accountants and lenders. The platform connects banks, tax systems and e-invoicing into a single “white & digital” ledger and layers on cash-flow telemetry that tracks real turnover and obligations in near real time. This data powers AORTA, ETCITA’s cash-flow–based risk engine, enabling banks and MFIs to underwrite SMEs on business performance rather than only hard collateral turning financial inclusion into cheaper, faster and fairer credit.