Ask an entrepreneur directly what matters in a loan, and the answer is “the rate”. It sounds rational and is socially expected, but it is almost useless for product decisions: the real choice is made faster than any rate comparison can kick in, and it relies on other signals.
To see these signals, we used blind testing: entrepreneurs picked the loan offer that suited them from several debranded cards, with no product or bank names.
Research methodology
We surveyed 223 SME representatives in total. The survey was conducted face to face in the regions, at local markets and in shopping centers:
- Tashkent
- Samarkand
- Karshi
- Bukhara
- Nukus
- Fergana
- Namangan
- Navoi
- Andijan
Besides answering questions about their business, respondents chose between anonymized cards describing loan terms, with no loan or bank names.
Three design decisions were key:
- Account opening and maintenance terms were shown alongside the loan terms. We modeled a situation where an entrepreneur urgently needs money and is considering a new bank for it, so they are buying not just a loan but a full move to a new bank. As it turned out, this part of the card proved decisive.
- The cards did not show an interest rate. This was not an oversight but part of the experiment: we wanted to see what happens to the choice when the main “rational” argument is unavailable. Would respondents notice the gap, hesitate or find other anchors?
- The set always included the options “none of these suit me” and “hard to say”. Without them, the study would have become a choice of the lesser evil and shown an artificially even picture. We needed an honest refusal rate, and it turned out to be one of the most telling figures in the whole study.
Keep the sample’s limitations in mind: it is skewed towards micro-businesses and trade, and the largest segments are small in number, so figures for them indicate a direction rather than a precise measurement.
Summary of the loan products studied
The study included loan products from seven banks in Uzbekistan:
- Tenge Bank
- TBC Bank
- Infin Bank
- Kapitalbank
- Ipoteka Bank
- SQB
- Asaka Bank
The set turned out well balanced for the experiment. The Tenge and TBC offers are very close: free account opening and maintenance, a 300M soum limit and a 36-month term. The difference between them comes down to a single line of wording. Ipoteka offers the best loan terms in the set: 2 bn soum and 60 months, twice the term of all the others. SQB offers the highest limit at 3 bn but the shortest term, 18 months. Kapitalbank sits in the middle. Infin and Ipoteka charge for account opening, and Asaka charges for maintenance.
The set thus included offers that were strong on loan terms and weak on account terms, and vice versa. This made it possible to see which carries more weight.
Respondent profile
Most of the sample are businesses with small turnover and size that have already used loan products.
One figure is worth dwelling on here: 74% of the sample had taken out a loan in the past year. This means we are dealing not with an untapped market that needs the very idea of borrowed money explained, but with a served and experienced one. Every gap between expectations and offers described below is a gap among people who already know what the lending process looks like from the inside.
The second notable fact of the profile: 71% work alone. Such a business has no finance person, no outsourced accountant and no time to compare fee schedules. One person makes the decision, in between other tasks, based on whatever they managed to read. This puts a hard limit on product complexity: anything that cannot be explained in a minute will not get their attention.
Overall distribution of choices across loan options
In most cases, the loan offers of Tenge Bank and TBC Bank compete for client preference — together they capture up to half of the target audience for SME loans.
At the same time, almost a quarter of respondents could not choose any of the loans offered. This may point to a serious gap between what entrepreneurs need and what all banks offer.
But the most interesting insight emerges when the distribution is mapped against the conditions for opening a relationship with the bank. Cards with free account maintenance receive 11% to 26% of choices, while every paid option stays strictly at or below 5%.
- An account opening fee cancels out any benefits, as shown by the modest share for Ipoteka Bank despite its objectively best loan terms.
- Entrepreneurs think in terms of risk and refuse guaranteed costs when loan approval is not guaranteed.
- Banks should view maintenance fees not as a revenue line but as a direct cause of losing a large share of potential borrowers.
How business size and turnover affect the choice of loan products
Tenge Bank and TBC are chosen more often by businesses with low turnover. As business size and turnover grow, so does interest in the more complex products offered by SQB and Kapitalbank, while the share of undecided respondents falls.
- SQB’s share rises sharply with business scale, reaching 40% in the top segment.
- Tenge’s trajectory is the mirror image: the bank is popular with micro-businesses but loses larger clients.
- Larger clients readily trade comfortable repayment terms for access to higher credit limits.
- Micro-businesses do not respond to high limits and choose a bank based on maintenance costs and payment transparency.
- A paid account opening puts off even large companies, offsetting the advantages of any product.
How industry affects the choice of loan products
Retail, manufacturing, HoReCa, logistics and agriculture more often chose the loan offers of Tenge Bank and TBC Bank. Construction more often chose the SQB offer. IT respondents chose the SQB and Kapitalbank offers equally often.
The largest share of “no choice” answers and hesitation is in IT, HoReCa and agriculture: these industries are the main growth area for the SME loan client base for all banks.
These three industries share a common denominator, and it is neither business size nor attitude to debt. In all three, revenue comes in unevenly: in IT, as project milestones are delivered; in HoReCa, with pronounced seasonality and swings across the days of the week; in agriculture, on an annual cycle. The standard annuity schedule was designed for steady monthly income and is applied to these businesses by inertia. For these industries it means not an expensive loan, but an unsuitable one.
Importantly, this is not a segment that can be won over by advertising or a lower rate. There is no product here that would fit by default, and since none of the seven banks has one, this is not about one player’s competitive advantage but about an unoccupied part of the market. A flexible repayment schedule — a deferred first payment, a seasonal curve, payments tied to project milestones — is not a service add-on here but a condition for entering the industry.
How borrowing experience affects the choice of loan products
Members of the target audience with borrowing experience more often chose TBC Bank’s loan offers, and almost as often Tenge Bank’s.
Those without borrowing experience most often chose the Tenge Bank offer, well ahead of other banks.
- With identical basic terms, first-time borrowers choose Tenge three times more often than TBC because it lists specific fees instead of abstract tariffs.
- Experienced borrowers can assess bundled offers, while first-time borrowers need simple, verifiable figures to understand a product.
- One in three clients without borrowing experience leaves without making a choice, while among experienced borrowers only 15% cannot choose anything.
- Existing banking products are clear to the current audience but poorly adapted to bringing new people into the market.
Motives behind the choice of loan offers
Based on answers to the open question “Why did you choose this particular loan option?”:
The motives follow exactly the same logic as the choice itself. Tenge is described as “simple”, “fast to get”, “clear terms”. TBC as “good interest rate”, “good terms”, “balanced terms”. SQB and Ipoteka as “large amount”, “long term”, “fits our scale”. Those who made a choice explain it by clarity or scale; those who did not explain their refusal with “unclear” and “no trust” — in other words, they also talk about clarity, not price.
This is where the study’s most unexpected finding emerges. To recall: none of the cards showed an interest rate. Yet respondents confidently explained their choice by the rate — “low interest”, “good interest rate”.
They did not notice that the key parameter was missing and filled it in themselves — from the free account opening, a specific fee, the readability of the wording. Transparency of terms was read as a signal that “it’s cheaper here”.
The conclusion follows: the perceived price of money is shaped not by the rate line but by the rest of the offer’s context. A client who “chose by rate” actually chose by a sense of fairness and clarity, and then explained it to themselves by the rate, because that is how financial decisions are usually explained. Accordingly, competing over tenths of a percentage point may not pay off if the offer remains opaque: the client simply never gets as far as comparing rates.
Key findings of the study
The SME market in Uzbekistan is becoming increasingly demanding of financial instruments, and standard approaches are no longer effective enough. The study highlights businesses’ real expectations and key trends:
- The cost of entry to the bank weighs more than the loan terms themselves. All offers with free account opening and maintenance received 11–26% of choices, all paid ones 3–5%. A one-time account opening fee outweighs a term twice as long and a limit six times higher.
- Tenge Bank and TBC Bank lead in preference, but they win with different audiences and for different reasons: Tenge with those who have never borrowed, thanks to clarity; TBC with experienced borrowers, thanks to comparable terms. Simplicity and detail are not competing strategies but tools for different tasks.
- The maximum amount becomes a deciding factor only in the upper segment. SQB leads among mature businesses with 40% of choices at turnover above 10 bn soum, but has clear room to grow downmarket: in the mass segment its product does not stand out because of the short term.
- Every bank has room to grow its client base in IT, HoReCa and agriculture. The common reason for rejection in these sectors is neither the rate nor the collateral as such, but a rigid annuity schedule that does not fit uneven revenue.
- The high level of uncertainty among a quarter of the target audience is primarily an acquisition problem. Among those who have never taken a loan, one in three found no suitable option, compared with only one in seven among experienced borrowers.
These findings send a direct signal to the financial sector. To attract clients from new and non-standard niches, banks need to focus on deliberately simplifying the customer experience and building flexible industry-specific solutions, moving away from the rigid framework of traditional banking.
Blind testing shows the relative appeal of offers and reveals what actually drives the choice. The logical next step is conjoint analysis, which turns these observations into numerical weights: how many percentage points of interest free account opening is worth to a retail microbusiness, and what each month of a shorter term costs.
If you have a product hypothesis you want to test against real user behaviour, write to us.
