ARDFM clarifies its data on banking conglomerates’ assets

The Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market (ARDFM) has updated its data on the financial conditions of Kazakhstani banking conglomerates. In the initial version published on July 17, the agency reported that over the first quarter of the year, Kaspi.kz’s assets declined by 50.2% from $14 billion to $7 billion. In the updated version of the report, Kaspi.kz’s assets were estimated at $14.3 billion as of April 1.

The agency also corrected its data on Bank CenterCredit (BCC). In the first version of the report, BCC was the second-largest banking conglomerate with $13.9 billion, outperforming Kaspi.kz in Q1. In the corrected version of the report, BCC is the third-largest with $11.6 billion in assets. Data for the ALMEX holding, the parent company of Halyk Bank, remained the same, with $33.1 billion in assets, making it the largest banking conglomerate in Kazakhstan.

This means that over the first quarter, assets grew by 2.7% for ALMEX, 1.2% for Kaspi.kz and 5.2% for BCC. In the new edition of the document, all figures match data from reports by Kaspi.kz and BCC. No data for ALMEX was available in open sources.

After the ARDFM published its initial report on July 17, Kursiv noticed discrepancies between the regulator’s report and data published by the conglomerates themselves. Following this, the regulator promptly updated its report.

The aggregated assets of banking conglomerates in Kazakhstan grew by $2.5 billion (2.9%) to $91.6 billion. An increase in the loan portfolio (by 3.1% to $47.5 billion) was the key driver of this growth. The aggregated portfolio of securities grew by 2.9% to reach $23.7 billion as of April 1.

A banking conglomerate is an ecosystem that, apart from a bank, includes companies from other sectors such as the brokerage, insurance and investment industries.