National Bank adjusts its plan on one QR code in Kazakhstan
The National Bank of Kazakhstan plans to introduce one QR code for all banks by the first half of 2025, not the end of 2024 as it said previously, according to Bloomberg, citing Timur Suleimenov, chair of the regulator.
«The National Bank plans to introduce a pilot project for a payment system based on one QR code for all commercial banks in the first half of the next year. I talked to executives of banks and told them that we need a system available for all. It seems that the two largest credit entities have created an oligopoly in the banking market of Kazakhstan as they control about 80% to 90% of payments,» Suleimenov said in his interview with the news agency, refusing to reveal names of those two banks.
According to Bloomberg, two dominant banks in Kazakhstan account for the vast majority of all payment transactions. Analyzing data from lending entities and the regulator, Bloomberg said that Kaspi.kz alone processes around 70% of money transfers and payments, while Halyk Bank accounts for 8% of these transactions. Kaspi.kz renders services to more than 14 million clients monthly.
Suleimenov has admitted that the one QR code project can affect the revenue of some lending entities. For instance, In February 2024, banks were wondering who would keep the personal data of customers and how they would process this information. Some banks were quite open about their reluctance to give up on their innovations as they heavily invested in these technologies. At the time, the head of the National Bank didn’t rule out that the regulator could use its legal power to force banks to join the new system. He insisted that national payment sovereignty is part of the country’s economic security.
In turn, Kaspi.kz told Bloomberg that it had proposed National Bank to introduce an open banking platform to «intensify competition on the banking market and make payments and money transfers more available for individuals and entities.»
«Our app is just popular among customers despite competition from Mastercard, Visa, Apple Pay and Google Pay. We will always support measures aimed at increasing the availability of mobile payments,» Kaspi.kz said.
According to Kaspi.kz CEO Mikhail Lomtadze, Kaspi QR is the bedrock of the bank’s payment system and the most popular payment option in Kazakhstan. Customers of banks other than Kaspi.kz cannot use Kaspi QR for their payments.
In 2022, the government said that any banking app would be compatible with a single QR code and entrepreneurs wouldn’t choose between banks when they install a POS terminal. At the time, Kazakhstan launched an inter-banking system of payment cards that offered two services: money transfers between individuals and QR code payments. Thanks to this system, clients of 10 out of 21 banks can currently send money to each other. Kaspi Bank and Halyk Bank aren’t part of the system, though.
In addition, Kazakhstan introduced an instant payment system in 2018, which has never worked on the full scale. The system was supposed to facilitate money transfers between customers of different banks at any time with just a phone number. As Suleimenov noted in February 2024, ten big banks already joined the system. Kaspi and Halyk are still staying aside, even though the head of the National Bank believes they will join the system soon. The number of transactions within the instant payment system was $346.6 million last year.
In February 2024, Suleimenov said that a single QR code would be entered into force by the end of this year. He also expressed hope that all Kazakhstani banks would eventually join the project.
