Building the infrastructure that connects markets: the rails that move payments, the capital that grows them, and the rules that build trust.” At the inaugural Silk Road Finance & Technology Forum in Tashkent, our Group Chief Payments & Digital Assets Officer, Ahmet KAYHAN, took the stage for a panel on "Building the Open Ecosystem: Rails, Capital & the Rules That Connect Markets." He said that digital operators with telecom roots have the scale and technology to connect financial services that have traditionally sat in silos, turning them into infrastructure that people and businesses rely on every day. BeeLab, the Uzbek fintech company behind Beepul, is proud to be the forum's official sponsor, backing a regional conversation on open banking, digital assets, cross-border payments and Islamic finance. This builds on real momentum. VEON's financial services platforms now serve 59 million customers across our markets, with financial services revenue up 48.5% year on year in the second quarter of 2026. In Uzbekistan, Beepul has become the country's #4# payment platform by revenue. In Pakistan, @JazzCash was recently named among the World's Top Fintech Companies 2026 by @CNBC and @StatistaCharts. Thank you to our fellow panellists Roman Tretyakov, Madhusudanan R, Otabek Nasirov, Stefan Klestil, Khusankhodja Abidov and Chek-Tchung Foo for a great discussion.