Kaspi to Acquire BTA Bank of Ukraine
JSC Kaspi.kz is going to acquire 100% of shares of the BTA Bank owned by KenesRakishev, a businessman from Kazakhstan. According to Kaspi, the Ukrainian bank has no branch offices or loan portfolio, and its operations are limited. The only reason for the deal is a banking license the Ukrainian bank owns.
According to Kaspi’s financial report for the third quarter of 2021, the company is going to repeat its Kazakhstani story of success in Ukraine and wants to offer people there its mobile payment tools and fintech solutions.
«The acquisition won’t affect the financial status of Kaspi.kz. We are going to close the deal in the first half of 2022. While having the banking license and payments licenses of Portmone on our hands we are going to repeat our Super App strategy in Ukraine,» said the company in a statement.
Kaspi believes that in the near future Ukraine might turn into an important source of talented IT specialists and become a development center of the company. With a population of 42 million people, the country is still not covered by online payment services (44% of people prefer using cash). Moreover, the level of penetration of e-commerce into day-to-day life is quite low (8% in retail), and consumer lending is less than 4.5% of the national GDP.
In July Kaspi.kz started its expansion abroad by acquiring Portmone, a Ukrainian payment service. Both Kazakhstani and Ukrainian experts estimate the deal to be $10-15 million. Portmone Group is a supplier of payment services and money transfers in Ukraine. Consumers can use its services for utility payments, card to card transfers and other financial payments.
On October 8, Kaspi Pay, a subsidiary of Kashi announced the end of the acquisition of Portmone.
«Thanks to the Portmone acquisition Kaspi.kz now has a license for payments and accreditation of Visa and Mastercard in Ukraine. It is expected that the consolidation of Portmone Group won’t affect the financial results of Kaspi.kz in 2021,» the company noted.
Kaspi.kz is a Kazakhstani fintech company owned by Baring Vostok (27.66%), Vyacheslav Kim (23.25%), and Mikhail Lomtadze (22.44%). According to the company’s financial report over the period from January to September 2021, Kaspi earned $699 million of net profit. Over the same period last year, the company earned just $432.5 million. In other words, over three quarters of 2021, the company’s profit has risen 1.6-fold.
