According to Asem Nurgaliyeva, executive director of the First Credit Bureau, in 2020 retail lending in Kazakhstan stepped into the zone of modest growth and declined from 20% in 2019 to 9% in 2020.
The slowing of the lending growth rate was reported amid the epidemiological crisis. The new, stricter regulations have also affected this process. As a result, the portfolio of retail loans in 2020 was about 7.1 trillion tenge ($16.9 billion).
Car title loans became the most successful sector, increasing by 22% to 707 billion tenge ($1.7 billion). The volume of unsecured loans remained at 3.8 trillion tenge ($9 billion). The credit card portfolio was also stable at a level of $533 million.
However, the number of secured loans for consumers has declined by 4% to $1.2 billion. Another big sector, mortgage credits, was about $4.5 billion at the end of last year.
«Lending institutions issued loans last year for $9.8 billion, which 90% less than the prior year. The number of unsecured loans has also shrunk. The reasons for these changes are absolutely clear. We had a quarantine in 2020 and many other factors also affected this process,» Nurgaliyeva said at today’s press briefing.
The loan market became more stable in the fall with just a slight decrease.
The unsecured loans segment has dropped by 11% to 2.4 trillion tenge ($5.7 billion). At the same time, people were prone to credit cards and car title loans.
More than 1.1 trillion tenge ($2.6 billion) were issued last year as mortgage credits. About 80% of the mortgage loans have been issued with help of public funds, according to the First Credit Bureau.
The total debt for retail and business credits including banks, microfinance and quasi-public organizations in 2020 reached 21.7 trillion tenge ($51.9 billion). In comparison to 2019, this rate increased by 6.5% or $3.1 billion while in the first half of last year, Kazakhstani banks reported a decline in their retail loan portfolios.
