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Kazakhstan’s bank-led digitalization journey is entering a new phase. The “Fintech in Kazakhstan 2026” report, prepared by RISE Research & Advisory, BCC Hub, Fintech Center and Tarlan Payments, shows that Unified QR, interbank transfers by phone number, the Digital Tenge, Open Banking, Banking-as-a-Service, shared anti-fraud infrastructure, digital assets and artificial intelligence are becoming interconnected components of the same financial infrastructure transformation. When read alongside FT Finansal Teknoloji’s previous studies based on official payment data and regional comparisons, the picture suggests that the fundamental change taking place in Kazakhstan is not only about payment volumes, but also about how the financial system itself operates.

Key Takeaways

• According to the report, cashless payments account for 88% of consumer payment value.
• As of 19 July 2026, Unified QR and interbank C2C transfers by phone number had been rolled out across all retail banks.
• The report shows the amount of Digital Tenge issued into circulation at $730 million as of July 2026.
• AIFC-licensed digital asset service providers recorded $10.6 billion in transaction volume in 2025, while the report identifies more than 50 regulated providers operating across the two regulatory jurisdictions.
• Approximately 75% of Kazakhstan’s banks use artificial intelligence in areas including credit scoring, fraud prevention and marketing.

Kazakhstan Fintech 2026: Key Indicators

The third annual national study examining Kazakhstan’s fintech ecosystem, Fintech in Kazakhstan 2026, looks at the country’s transformation not only through companies and products, but also across payment infrastructure, banking, digital assets, Banking-as-a-Service and artificial intelligence.

The report’s main framework is clear: Kazakhstan’s first fintech wave was shaped largely by banks. The next areas of growth are emerging around Open Banking, BaaS, embedded finance, vertical fintech solutions and shared financial infrastructure.

This distinction matters. Kazakhstan has followed a different development path from markets where fintech startups rose primarily as challengers to traditional banks. According to the report, the five largest banks control 69% of total banking-sector assets, while several major super-apps retain strong positions in everyday financial services. The report assesses that this structure limits the room available for independent B2C fintech models and has also kept fintech venture capital investment concentrated primarily at the early stages. (Report, pp. 4 and 27)

Digital payments are now the way the Kazakhstan market operates

Indicators from Kazakhstan’s payments market show that digitalization is no longer simply a future objective.

According to the report, cashless payments have reached 88% of consumer payment value. The number of active online banking users increased from 23 million in 2019 to 34 million in 2025, while the number of payment cards in circulation rose from 33 million to 85 million. The number of POS terminals increased from approximately 300,000 in 2022 to 1.3 million in 2025. QR transaction volumes by count, meanwhile, rose from 1.5 billion in 2023 to 3.8 billion in 2025. (Report, p. 9)

FT Finansal Teknoloji’s earlier card payments analysis, based on second-quarter 2026 data from the National Bank of Kazakhstan, had already highlighted the country’s high level of payment intensity. That study showed that Kazakhstan stands out in the region not only in terms of the number of cards or the size of its infrastructure, but also in terms of digital transaction intensity per capita.

It is important, however, to underline that different datasets do not measure exactly the same thing. Card transactions, total cashless payments, internet and mobile banking transactions and QR payments are based on different statistical definitions. Volumes and ratios from different sources therefore should not simply be added together.

How are QR payments growing in Kazakhstan?

The report also provides a detailed picture of the role QR payments are playing in payment behaviour.

QR’s share of cashless transactions by number increased from 14% in 2023 to 28% in 2025. Its share by value, however, remained at around 10%. According to the report, internet and mobile banking continue to dominate higher-value payment flows, accounting for approximately 80% of total transaction value.

Between January and May 2026, QR payment volume reached ₸8 trillion, approximately $17 billion. Over the same period, transactions processed through POS terminals amounted to ₸7.5 trillion, approximately $16 billion. The report calculates the average QR transaction at approximately $10, compared with $41 for an internet or mobile banking transaction. (Report, p. 12)

These figures indicate that QR is expanding rapidly primarily in everyday, lower-value retail payments rather than replacing higher-value transactions.

How does Unified QR work in Kazakhstan?

One of the most important elements of Kazakhstan’s transformation is the shift from banks’ closed systems toward shared payment infrastructure.

Interbank C2C transfers using phone numbers were launched with five banks in June 2025. By February 2026, 12 banks had joined the system. Unified QR was launched with three banks in September 2025.

According to the report, as of 19 July 2026, Unified QR and interbank C2C transfers by phone number were available across all retail banks.

Before the nationwide launch, more than ₸160 billion, approximately $340 million, in payments and transfers had already been processed through the Interbank Mobile Payment System. The report states that the NPCK processing tariff for a successful C2C transfer is zero tenge, although banks may still charge customers their own fees. (Report, p. 18)

The roadmap also includes QR payments in e-commerce, invoicing between customers of different banks, cross-border transfers and payments, and the use of static QR codes in areas such as parking, public service centres and public transport.

The report also refers to integration with Kyrgyzstan through ELQR, a memorandum with China’s UnionPay, and memoranda signed with India and the United Arab Emirates. These initiatives are not all at the same stage: some represent existing integrations, while others remain at the MoU or roadmap stage. (Report, p. 18)

Payments, identity, security and digital currency are converging within the same infrastructure

One of the report’s important findings is that payment systems are no longer being treated as isolated projects.

Real-time payments, Open Banking, cybersecurity, the interbank card system, anti-fraud, consent management, the Digital Tenge, biometric identification, ISO 20022 and 24/7 operational resilience are positioned as components of the same national digital financial infrastructure.

According to the report, systems operated by the National Bank of Kazakhstan processed ₸1.6 quadrillion, approximately $3.1 trillion based on the report’s conversion, during 2025. (Report, p. 17)

This figure does not represent the size of Kazakhstan’s fintech market or the stock of assets held within the financial system. It refers to the gross flow of transactions processed through payment systems over the course of the year.

Where is the Digital Tenge being used?

The Digital Tenge is one of the most notable areas covered in the report.

The study classifies 2021–2022 as the research and foundational design stage, 2023 as the beginning of the pilot phase, and 2024–2026 as the period in which public spending applications and the legal framework expanded.

The report shows the amount of Digital Tenge issued into circulation at $506 million in 2024, $716 million in 2025 and $730 million as of July 2026. These figures are presented in the report’s chart in millions of US dollars. (Report, p. 19)

The use cases are even more significant.

According to the report, the Digital Tenge has been used for the targeted deployment of National Fund resources, agricultural equipment leasing subsidies, livestock financing, digital VAT, targeted use of Kazakhstan Football Federation funds, National Bank procurement, road-repair financing and SME lending through the Damu Fund.

The Digital Tenge is also expected to scale to more than 100 major public-budget and National Fund projects. (Report, p. 19)

These use cases position the Digital Tenge not merely as a CBDC intended for consumer payments, but also as part of a programmable and traceable public-finance infrastructure.

Anti-fraud is moving from the bank level to the system level

Another important component of the shared-infrastructure approach is the National Anti-Fraud Center.

According to the report, between July 2024 and July 2026 the centre prevented fraud worth ₸117 billion, approximately $249 million.

During the same period, 180,000 incidents were recorded and ₸579 million, approximately $1.2 million, was returned to victims. (Report, p. 20)

The centre connects not only banks, but also microfinance organisations, payment organisations, telecom operators, IMEI data, SIM-box and IP-telephony signals, law-enforcement authorities, prosecutors, national security institutions, financial-monitoring bodies and credit bureaus within the same defence network.

The report states that 250 participants are connected to the system. It also envisages a proactive detection pilot for the third quarter of 2026 involving AI analytics as well as crypto service providers and marketplaces. (Report, p. 20)

The timing distinction is important: the Q3 2026 pilot is presented in the report as a next step, not as an already completed outcome.

Financial regulation was reshaped during the same period

The infrastructure transformation has been accompanied by broad regulatory change.

The report treats the new Banking Law, the Digital Code, the Artificial Intelligence Law, the national digital asset regime, credit and anti-fraud regulations, and the nationwide rollout of Unified QR as parts of the same transformation. (Report, p. 22)

The new Banking Law, signed on 16 January 2026, introduced a two-tier bank licensing structure while also providing a new framework for Digital Tenge accounts, digital financial assets, Open Banking and bank-fintech relationships.

The Digital Code was signed on 9 January 2026.

The Artificial Intelligence Law was signed on 17 November 2025 and entered into force on 18 January 2026.

The national digital asset regime came into force on 1 May 2026. (Report, pp. 22–24)

The report describes this period as Kazakhstan’s most extensive financial regulatory reset in 30 years. This is the report’s own assessment.

Three distinct entry routes are emerging for fintechs

The new banking framework provides for two categories of banking licence: Basic and Universal.

According to the report, the minimum capital requirement for a Basic licence is ₸10 billion, with a maximum asset threshold of ₸500 billion. The minimum capital requirement for a Universal licence is ₸20 billion, with no maximum asset limit. (Report, p. 24)

The report identifies three primary routes for fintechs: the Partner/BaaS route, under which a company operates on a bank’s balance sheet and infrastructure; the Payment/API route, which allows third-party providers to operate within the Open Banking perimeter; and the Bank route, under which eligible players can obtain a Basic banking licence after meeting the required capital and governance standards.

According to the report, the Basic licence may provide a new transition pathway particularly for scaled microfinance institutions and mature fintech companies.

Payment organisation growth may be shifting from quantity to quality

In the payment organisations section of Fintech in Kazakhstan 2026, the report uses the National Bank of Kazakhstan’s register as of 13 July 2026 and states that 131 of the 222 payment organisations historically registered in the country were active.

According to the report, 2026 marked the first time that the number of organisations removed from the register exceeded the number of new registrations. Despite this, transaction volume among payment organisations grew by 22.2% year-on-year in 2025. (Report, p. 38)

What could the Category 1 Payment Organisation model change?

The report treats the new Category 1 Payment Organisation model as an important structural development.

Under the new framework, these organisations are expected to be able to issue electronic money, open accounts for legal entities, connect directly to RTGS, ACH, CBDC and Faster Payments infrastructure, and perform issuing and acquiring activities within international card schemes.

They would not, however, be permitted to accept deposits or extend credit. (Report, p. 38)

This could create a new scaling route between conventional payment services and banking for larger payment organisations with stronger compliance capabilities.

BaaS is turning banks’ technology infrastructure into a standalone product

Banking-as-a-Service is one of the areas to which the report devotes a dedicated section.

The study compares the BaaS platforms of Bank RBK, BCC.kz, Halyk and Freedom Bank. The comparison is explicitly marked “not exhaustive,” meaning these institutions should not be interpreted as representing all BaaS providers in the country. (Report, p. 46)

According to the report, a business can typically integrate individual banking modules in two to three weeks, while deploying a complete turnkey digital bank takes 10 weeks or longer. (Report, p. 48)

In the same section, BCC Hub Business Development and Sales Director Askar Zhakenov notes that technical integration time alone is not a sufficient measure; onboarding, KYB, dispute resolution and responsibility toward the end customer must also be included when assessing the real time required to reach production.

Company data relating to BCC Hub includes 18 API families, 22 products, sandbox onboarding within one to three days, four white-label banking platforms and more than 90 projects across the group and partner environment. The report notes that these figures are based on data supplied by BCC. (Report, p. 49)

How is Kazakhstan’s digital asset market regulated?

Kazakhstan’s digital asset market operates across two separate regulatory jurisdictions.

The AIFC continues to operate under its own legal and licensing regime, while a national digital asset regulatory framework outside the AIFC came into force in May 2026.

According to the report, the national framework covers cryptoassets defined as unsecured digital assets, as well as money-backed stablecoins, tokenized real assets and digital forms of traditional financial instruments.

The AIFC, meanwhile, continues to operate under its own legal regime. (Report, pp. 51–52)

In 2025, AIFC-licensed Digital Asset Service Providers recorded $10.6 billion in total transaction volume, served 215,000 clients, and numbered 28 DASPs. (Report, p. 52)

Across the two regulatory jurisdictions, the report identifies more than 50 regulated providers. It also explicitly notes that some organisations licensed under both the AIFC and national regimes are counted only once. (Report, p. 53)

The $10.6 billion figure should therefore not be interpreted as “the total size of Kazakhstan’s crypto market.” It specifically refers to the 2025 transaction volume of AIFC-licensed DASPs.

Stablecoin and tokenization pilots are moving into concrete use cases

The report lists several pilot programmes and market applications involving digital assets.

In September 2025, a pilot for the tenge-backed KZTE stablecoin was launched within the National Bank’s regulatory sandbox.

In October 2025, AFSA accepted its first regulatory fee denominated in USDT from SkyBridge Digital Finance using Bybit infrastructure.

In December 2025, a pilot to tokenize refined gold held by the National Bank was approved.

In February 2026, a commercial real-estate tokenization pilot was launched.

In April 2026, Alatau City Bank and Binance completed the first crypto QR test payment.

AIX also began trading a Solana ETF incorporating staking. (Report, p. 54)

These examples are not all at the same level of maturity. Some are regulatory sandbox pilots, some are first test transactions, while others are financial products already trading in the market.

75% of Kazakhstan’s banks use artificial intelligence

One of the key findings in the artificial intelligence section is that approximately 75% of Kazakhstan’s banks use AI in areas including credit scoring, fraud prevention and marketing. (Report, p. 57)

The more significant change, however, can be seen in where AI is being applied.

According to a National Bank of Kazakhstan survey covering 95 financial-market participants, the share of AI use in operational activities increased from 11% to 21% in 2025, while software development and information-system support rose from 0% to 18%.

Risk management and compliance accounted for 16%, marketing and sales for 15%, and customer support for 14%. (Report, p. 58)

The report interprets these figures as evidence that AI is moving beyond customer-facing use cases and deeper into the internal operations and technology infrastructure of financial institutions.

GovTech is one of the foundations of financial digitalization

Another important factor behind Kazakhstan’s fintech structure is the level of digitalization in public services.

According to the report, 92% of public services are available online, while 85% are accessible via smartphone. Around 85% of the economically active population uses eGov platforms, and the number of registered users reached 15 million in 2025. (Report, p. 16)

The report also places Kazakhstan 24th in the UN E-Government Development Index and within the top 10 of the UN Online Services Index. (Report, p. 15)

This infrastructure is one of the factors facilitating the integration of Digital ID, biometric authentication and government data into banking applications.

As e-commerce grows, finance is moving inside marketplaces

According to the report, retail e-commerce penetration in Kazakhstan increased from 3.7% in 2019 to 17.1% in 2025. (Report, p. 13)

In the first half of 2025, 92% of retail e-commerce was conducted through marketplaces. The same section states that SMEs account for more than 40% of GDP. (Report, p. 14)

This structure also helps explain why the report identifies embedded finance, SME financing and marketplace-linked financial services as emerging areas of growth.

Kazakhstan’s financial ecosystems are expanding into Türkiye

The report treats Türkiye as a distinct growth market when examining the expansion of Kazakhstan-based financial ecosystems beyond Central Asia.

Kaspi.kz’s investment in Hepsiburada and its expansion into financial services through a banking licence in Türkiye, together with Freedom’s banking investment in the Turkish market, are presented as examples of Kazakh financial ecosystems moving beyond the export of technology or payment services and into directly licensed financial structures in other markets. (Report, p. 30)

These developments indicate that Türkiye is becoming increasingly visible in the international expansion of Kazakhstan’s fintech ecosystem.

Strong digital economy, limited fintech VC

One of the report’s more striking contrasts is found in fintech venture capital investment.

Fintech VC investment verified by RISE Research amounted to $3 million in 2021, $10 million in 2022, $32 million in 2023, $19 million in 2024 and $8 million in 2025. (Report, p. 33)

The report notes that a significant share of transactions remained at the pre-seed and seed stages.

This suggests that Kazakhstan’s fintech maturity cannot be assessed solely through the scale of investment into independent startups. A significant part of the country’s consumer financial technology has developed within the ecosystems of banking groups themselves.

FT Analysis | Where is the real shift in Kazakhstan’s fintech model?

It is no longer sufficient to describe Kazakhstan’s fintech story simply in terms of “high digital payment volumes.”

Large banks played the defining role in the country’s first transformation. Banks evolved from institutions offering deposits, cards or loans into digital ecosystems combining payments, financing, commerce and everyday services.

That structure generated extremely high levels of digital usage.

But when individual banks each build their own closed ecosystems and the market reaches a certain level of maturity, a new issue emerges: connectivity itself becomes a competitive factor.

Unified QR, interbank transfers by phone number, Open Banking, Digital ID, shared anti-fraud infrastructure and the Digital Tenge can therefore be read as components of the same structural transformation.

In Kazakhstan’s second fintech phase, the foundational layers of the financial system are becoming increasingly shared.

This could shift competition away from infrastructure itself and toward the products built on top of that infrastructure.

New areas of competition may increasingly form around customer experience, BaaS, embedded finance, SME finance, vertical fintech solutions, enterprise data, artificial intelligence, tokenization and cross-border financial services.

Kazakhstan’s model also differs in this respect from the conventional global fintech narrative.

In many markets, the story is framed around fintech startups emerging and forcing banks to digitalize.

In Kazakhstan, the banks became fintech companies first.

The development of shared infrastructure may now open new opportunities for technology companies operating outside the dominant banking ecosystems.

However, those opportunities are more likely to emerge in B2B technology, regtech, embedded finance, SME finance and infrastructure businesses than through a new wave of consumer super-apps.

BaaS is one of the clearest signals of this transition.

Banks are no longer simply selling financial products. They are turning their licences, API architectures, processing engines, KYC systems and product infrastructure into service layers that third parties can use.

Under this model, the bank also becomes a technology infrastructure provider.

Another important shift concerns the role of the regulator.

In Kazakhstan, public authorities are not positioned solely as institutions that set boundaries for financial markets or issue licences. They also play a direct architectural role in the construction of shared infrastructure such as payment rails, digital identity, Open Banking, anti-fraud systems and the Digital Tenge.

This approach can provide significant advantages in terms of standardization and interoperability.

At the same time, as innovation becomes increasingly dependent on common infrastructure, the balance between market-led innovation and centrally designed financial architecture may itself become an important issue in the future.

This assessment is not a direct conclusion of the report; it represents FT Finansal Teknoloji’s structural analysis.

Why does this matter for the Turkic world?

FT Finansal Teknoloji’s previous study, conducted within the FT Atlas framework and based on the official payment and electronic money registers of Türkiye, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan, showed that similar financial activities are conducted under substantially different licensing and regulatory architectures across the five countries.

Kazakhstan is now developing a distinctive model within this broader landscape:

strong banking ecosystems + shared national financial infrastructure + the AIFC’s separate legal jurisdiction + greater infrastructure access for fintechs.

This model cannot simply be copied by other countries. Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan differ in market size, banking structures, regulatory systems and public infrastructure.

However, Unified QR, instant transfers, open APIs, digital identity and cross-border payment connections are areas that should be closely monitored not only from Kazakhstan’s perspective but also in the context of wider regional financial integration.

In FT Finansal Teknoloji’s earlier analysis of card payments across the Turkic world, Türkiye stood out for scale, while Kazakhstan distinguished itself through the intensity of digital payments.

The potential between the two markets therefore extends beyond corporate investment.

Interoperability between payment systems, financial data standards, BaaS, Open Banking and the cross-border use of fintech infrastructure could become some of the most concrete areas of Türkiye–Kazakhstan cooperation and broader fintech connectivity across the Turkic world.

Conclusion

The picture presented by the Fintech in Kazakhstan 2026 report shows that Kazakhstan’s fintech development can no longer be described simply as a period of rising digital adoption.

In the first phase, banks moved users into digital financial ecosystems.

In the second phase, payments, data, identity, security and digital currency infrastructure are becoming interconnected.

The central question for Kazakhstan’s fintech ecosystem is therefore no longer simply whether more fintech companies will emerge.

The key question is how much new space shared financial infrastructure will create for independent fintech companies, technology providers and cross-border players in a highly digital market still dominated by banks.

The answer will help determine not only the future direction of Kazakhstan’s fintech ecosystem, but also the shape of emerging financial technology connections across Central Asia and the wider Turkic world.

Sources and Methodology

Fintech in Kazakhstan 2026 combines RISE Research’s proprietary database with the National Bank of Kazakhstan’s payment organisation, electronic money and MFO registers; AFSA/AIFC public registers; regulatory and corporate disclosures; and international datasets.

The fintech map was developed through an open market-wide survey conducted in July–August 2026, with submissions cross-checked against official registers and supported by more than 10 structured interviews.

The report explicitly notes that the company map is not exhaustive due to voluntary participation, that official registers may reflect entries and exits with a delay, and that some company-level data is self-reported and has not been independently audited by RISE Research.

The general data cut-off is primarily July 2026; market developments are covered through 21 July 2026, with certain company results updated following second-quarter disclosures. (Report, p. 59)