Banking sector reports increase in assets

As of March 1, 2023, the banking sector’s assets in Kazakhstan reached $97.9 billion assets, a 0.1% increase compared with January 2023, according to the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market (ARDFM). A 0.6% increase in the loan portfolio was a key driver for this growth, the regulator said.

High-liquid assets have risen to 31.2% ($30.6 billion). Banks’ equity capital rose in February by 3.9% to $12.4 billion (a 7.4% increase since the beginning of the year). At the same time, the banking sector reported a 0.5% decrease to $85.6 billion in its liabilities (a 2.3% decrease since the beginning of the year), mainly due to a 4.7% decline in deposits owned by companies ($30.5 billion), the ARDFM said.

In March 2023, the aggregative amount of deposits in Kazakhstan declined by 2.6% to $66.4 billion due to the negative overvaluation of foreign currency deposits in the background against the strengthening of the tenge.

«The decline in deposits is often linked with seasonal tax payments by corporations in February of the reported period,» the agency noted.

The amount of corporate deposits has declined by 5.2% to $31.8 billion, while deposits of individuals decreased only by 0.1% (to $34.3 billion). Banks reported a decline in deposits in both tenge and foreign currencies by 1.4% (to $46.3 billion) and by 5.3% (to $20 billion), respectively. Given that the national currency tenge strengthened, the de-dollarization rate declined to 30.2% as of March 1 compared with 31.6% in January 2023.