Household financial vulnerability in Uzbekistan: debt burden, regional disparities and a stress test

Abstract

The paper examines household debt and financial vulnerability in Uzbekistan using data for 2020–2026. Outstanding household credit rose 5.5-fold in six years, and its ratio to gross domestic product climbed from 7.8 to 11.9 percent. A composite household financial vulnerability index is constructed for the regions from the debt-to-income ratio, the loan-to-deposit ratio and dependence on remittances, and a stress test gauges how the debt-service-to-income ratio responds to income and interest-rate shocks.