Calls to require marketplaces — especially those affiliated with banks — to publish two prices for goods, one standard and one for installment plans, represent a «strange construct,» according to Vitaliy Tutushkin, deputy chairman of Kazakhstan’s National Bank. He shared his view on Nov. 21 during a Kursiv.media roundtable on consumer lending, noting that such an approach could pose risks to the broader market economy.
Dual-pricing practice
Notably, Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin earlier announced that greater pricing transparency on marketplaces would help curb inflation. The proposed dual-pricing practice would also extend to online retailers.
Tutushkin urged caution, arguing that only the base, standard price of a product should be displayed, with installment-plan interest disclosed separately.
Attempts to regulate pricing by mandating dual price tags, he warned, could cause prices to «lose their inflationary role,» meaning their ability to reflect changes in purchasing power, leading to negative economic consequences.
Hidden marketplace fees
Murat Temirkhanov, an advisor at Halyk Finance, explained how hidden marketplace fees drive automatic price increases for all consumers. For example, if the market price of an item is 100,000 tenge, a marketplace may require sellers to list it at 110,000 tenge so the additional 10,000 tenge covers the financing cost of installment plans.
«In other words, it’s not the person who uses the installment plan who pays the interest, but the party who pays upfront,» he said.
The expert added that once a seller lists an item at 110,000 tenge on a marketplace, they effectively cannot sell the same product elsewhere for 100,000 tenge. As a result, «prices will automatically rise everywhere,» causing all buyers to absorb the cost of installment financing.
Temirkhanov emphasized that the extra 10,000 tenge is not a commission but the effective interest rate on the loan. He argued that all installment plans, including those issued by nonfinancial and unregulated companies, should fall under the oversight of the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market (ARDFM).
