According to Madina Abylkasymova, head of the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market (ARDFM) in Kazakhstan, the government is looking for buyers for its Bereke Bank. «On March 8, 2023, the bank was removed from the SDN list. Currently, it is performing quite well. For instance, its…
Kaspi.kz, a Kazakhstani fintech company, is launching a four-month buyback program. Kaspi has allocated $100 million to buy its global depository receipts (GDR) in the broad market, according to the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE). During three previous buyback programs, the company bought GDR for $180 million. Kaspi.kz will buy GDR…
Halyk Bank has reported losses associated with the selling of its subsidiaries in Russia and Tajikistan: Moskommertsbank and Halyk Bank Tajikistan, according to data published on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) website. KASE data shows that the bank estimated its losses associated with the selling of Moskommertsbank at $41.1 million.…
As of March 2, 2023, the exchange rate of the tenge against the U.S. dollar grew by 6.1 tenge and reached 435.5 tenge per dollar, which is a nine-month record. According to experts, there are several reasons for this increase. Dollar sale-off Kazakhstan’s National Bank data shows that the regulator…
In January 2023, the aggravated number of client accounts on Astana International Exchange (AIX) reached 551,100, which is a threefold increase over the year before, according to the trading platform’s data. Accounts of individuals from Kazakhstan account for the vast majority of these accounts (99.7% or 549,400 accounts in general).…
The KASE index, which includes nine companies, rose by 1.2% to 3,338.9 points in February, according to Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE). The key index in Kazakhstan has demonstrated a positive dynamic over three months in a row thanks to five stocks in the index. Best-performing growth stocks The leader of…
In 2022, the combined capacity of renewable energy power stations in Kazakhstan rose by 4.5% and reached 2.5 gigawatts. Last year, Kazakhstan’s power stations produced 112.8 billion kilowatt-hours in total. About 5.1 billion kilowatt-hours were generated by renewable sources like solar and wind power stations, small hydroelectric power stations and…
The Bostandyk district court in Almaty has arrested common and privileged shares of Jusan Bank that belong to First Heartland Securities, the majority stakeholder of the bank, according to the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE). The court arrested 131.3 million common and privileged shares belonging to First Heartland Securities – the…
As the Kursiv edition came to know, business structures affiliated with the Russian Sinara Group have become the new owner of Moskommertsbank, a former subsidiary of Halyk Bank. Sinara, which is based in Yekaterinburg, previously was controlled by Russian billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky. He also owned TMK, a metallurgic company that…
According to Lyazzat Satiyeva, head of the Kazakhstani Eurasian Bank, the Central Bank of the Republic of Uzbekistan has given the bank preliminary permission to open a subsidiary in the country. The official noted that Eurasian Bank filed its application to the Central Bank in December 2022. Earlier last year,…
According to Olzhas Kizatov, deputy head of the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market of the Republic of Kazakhstan (ARDFM), about seven banks might be affected by new restrictions the agency is going to impose on dividend payout policy. All these banks have received financial support from…
Despite the deficit of top-class warehouses in Kazakhstan, professional warehouse developers aren’t keen to invest in new projects. They prefer building warehouses for big lessees. There is a small circle of clients, so such warehouses are rarely seen in the broader market. As a result, retailers have to invest in…
In January 2023, the KASE index grew by 1.5% and reached 3,299.91 points. In December 2022, this rate showed a 6.1% growth, according to the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE). Five stocks of the index reported positive results in January. Stocks with gains Kazatomprom’s stock showed the best result in January…
Uzbekistan has been going through a massive privatization campaign as the country’s government offers investors almost everything to small and big companies and banks. However, not every potential investor is happy about the privatization, citing the lack of transparency. Communication in business The potential privatization of Uzagroexportbank was among the…
Kyrgyzstan plans to raise the minimum rate for commercial banks’ registered and equity capital. The rate may be about $23.2 million for too-big-to-fail banks. The Kursiv edition has tried to determine whether these changes will affect Optima Bank and Halyk Bank Kyrgyzstan, the two subsidiaries of big Kazakhstani banks. The…
The government of Uzbekistan has reduced the value-added tax (VAT) to 12%. The new rule entered into force on January 1, 2023. The authorities expect that the move will help reduce the shadow economy, stimulate business activity in the country and increase public revenues. After reducing the VAT to 12%,…
Mikhail Lomtadze, CEO and co-founder of Kaspi has bought two million shares of the company from another stockholder Vyacheslav Kim. As a result, Lomtadze is the second largest stockholder after Baring Vostok, according to the company’s data from January 1, 2023. According to KASE, Lomtadze’s share in Kaspi increased from…
OTP Group, the leading financial organization in Hungary, has finally signed a purchase agreement with Uzbekistan’s Ipoteka-Bank. A long-awaited deal Even though the deal between Ipoteka-Bank and OTP Group was expected to be closed within two months, it took almost a year because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. OTP’s…
The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control doesn’t mind if individuals who left Russia for Kazakhstan are using Russian payment cards Mir in their daily life, according to the Agency for Regulating and Development of the Financial Market in Kazakhstan. «Kazakhstan’s commercial banks can accept any payments and money transfers…
