Kazakhstan’s banking sector will remember the year 2025 for a sharp decline in profit growth amid additional taxation and higher minimum reserve requirements. Growth in loan and deposit portfolios also slowed, though less dramatically than financial results. Total sector assets rose from 61.6 trillion to 70.8 trillion tenge in 2025…
South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb mistakenly transferred 620,000 bitcoins to users — coins worth more than $42 billion at current prices. The incident was caused by human error rather than a cyberattack. An error costing billions According to the South Korean newspaper Chosun, the mistake occurred during the distribution of…
Timur Turlov’s Freedom Bank has ranked among the top three banks in Kazakhstan for the highest interest rates on certificates of deposit, alongside Home Credit and Eurasian Bank, according to Ranking.kz. Freedom Bank, part of the Freedom Finance ecosystem supervised by well-known financier Timur Turlov, became the first bank in…
Oil and gas giant Shell will suspend investments in Kazakhstan during ongoing legal proceedings with the government, according to CEO Wael Sawan. He said multiple lawsuits filed by the republic, totaling billions of dollars, are reducing the company’s willingness to continue investing in the country. Kazakhstan is currently involved in…
On Feb. 4, as part of Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s state visit to Pakistan, he and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif attended the Kazakhstan-Pakistan Business Forum, according to the Akorda press service. Speaking at the forum, Tokayev thanked the Pakistani prime minister for initiating the event, calling his first state visit…
Timur Turlov, founder and CEO of Freedom Holding Corp., plans to acquire another bank and a local marketplace in Kazakhstan. The company is also looking to purchase a second-tier bank in Turkey. To finance these initiatives, the holding is considering issuing up to $500 million in bonds, Turlov said. In…
China’s Hong Kong–based Sino-Science Oil and Gas Co. Ltd., also known as Geo-Jade Petroleum, plans to produce up to 1 trillion cubic meters of natural gas from the Sozak field in southern Kazakhstan, according to Sultangali Kinzhakulov, CEO of Kazakh Invest. Kinzhakulov said the project involves reinvesting profits earned by…
Federal prosecutors in Chicago have indicted two Kazakh citizens in connection with a large-scale health care fraud scheme involving private insurance and Medicare. Investigators estimate that losses to public and private insurers exceeded $1 billion. Case against Anuar Abdrakhmanov One indictment centers on Anuar Abdrakhmanov, a Kazakh citizen accused of…
Kazakhstan’s Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market and the National Bank have approved new rules allowing banks with universal licenses, as well as Islamic banks, to operate with digital financial assets. Three categories of digital assets Under the regulations, banks may conduct transactions involving three types of…
In January, shares of Kazatomprom traded on Kazakhstan’s KASE and AIX exchanges rose 49.5%. The uranium giant led all Kazakhstani firms in both share price growth and trading volume, economist Arman Batayev said on his Telegram channel. Policy shifts boost nuclear outlook Batayev attributed the rally to foreign policy and…
Kazakhstan’s second nuclear power plant (NPP), to be built by China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), will also be located in the Zhambyl district of the Almaty region, according to a government decree dated Jan. 26. Russia awarded first nuclear project Kazakhstan’s first NPP will be built by Russia’s state-owned nuclear…
Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Transport said it is working on implementing a joint project with Afghanistan to build the Turgundi-Herat-Kandahar-Spin Boldak railway, which is set to ensure goods delivery from Central Asia to the ports of Pakistan. The cabinet held a session with an interagency working group on developing cooperation with…
Kazakhstan’s economy is showing signs of overheating amid accelerating growth, loose fiscal policy and active consumer lending, according to a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF noted that after growing by approximately 5% in 2023 and 2024, the country’s economy has continued to accelerate — to 6.5%…
ASML Holding NV plans to eliminate roughly 1,700 positions, primarily within its technology divisions, according to Chief Executive Officer Christophe Fouquet, Bloomberg reported. The announcement came as the Dutch tech giant reported its 13th straight year of revenue growth. Most of the job reductions will take place in the Netherlands,…
The Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) plans to launch the country’s first exchange-traded funds linked to KASE indices, marking a milestone for Kazakhstan’s capital markets. The move will allow retail investors to gain exposure to the domestic market using a structure similar to widely followed global benchmarks such as the S&P…
Kazakhstan’s Energy Minister Yerlan Akkezhenov said production at the Tengiz oil field is being restored in stages, with full output expected to resume within a week. Fields restarting after fire Speaking on the sidelines of Parliament, Akkezhenov said production at the Korolevskoye field has already been fully restored. He added…
Energia Semirechya, a company with predominantly Chinese ownership that operates the Shelek-1 wind farm in the Almaty region, southern Kazakhstan, reported a net loss of 3.28 billion tenge ($7 million) in 2024. Losses widen despite growing revenue The wind farm was launched in 2022, but the company has failed to…
The resumption of operations at the CPC Black Sea terminal and the expected restart of oil production at Tengiz have pushed oil prices lower. Positive news about the recovery of Kazakh oil supplies was strong enough to overshadow concerns over the winter storm that hit a large swath of the…
According to Bloomberg, shareholders of the Karachaganak oil and gas project have lost an international arbitration dispute with the Kazakh government, meaning they may be obliged to pay $2 to $4 billion in compensation to the country. The court sided with the Kazakh government, which argued that the Karachaganak project…
On Jan. 26, U.S. President Donald Trump announced an increase in import tariffs from 15% to 25% on South Korean products, including cars, lumber and pharmaceuticals, in a post on Truth Social. In the post, the president said the move was due to delays by the country’s legislative authorities in…
Gold prices rose above $5,000 an ounce for the first time, continuing a historic rally that has pushed the metal up more than 60% in 2025, according to the BBC. This surge is occurring amid growing geopolitical and financial uncertainty, driven by tensions over Greenland and concerns about U.S. trade…
Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Energy confirmed that the third single-point mooring (SPM-3) at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s (CPC) Marine Terminal has been successfully put into service. Repair work The repair work on SPM-3 have been completed. All restoration and technical measures, as well as testing, have been carried out. The system…
Goldman Sachs Research analysts expect the U.S. dollar to continue declining in 2026, though at a slower pace than in previous periods. According to financial analyst Andrey Chebotarev, writing on his Telegram channel, this trend reflects the U.S. economy no longer serving as the undisputed global leader. The dollar is…
Kazakhstan’s government has approved major investment projects to build four modern pharmaceutical manufacturing plants to expand domestic drug production. The total investment is estimated at 173 billion tenge (about $340 million). The projects will be implemented by four companies: AltINFARM LLP; Nobel Almaty Pharmaceutical Factory JSC; Abdi Ibrahim Global Pharm…
