Kazakhstan-based microfinance organization Solva is restructuring its business model to obtain a banking license. The company is dropping its focus on short-term unsecured microloans and shifting to secured financing. Solva board member Timur Ishmuratov announced the change.
The new model will lower interest rates and extend loan terms. The company will first offer these new conditions to its core loyal borrowers, which make up about 40% of the MFO’s current client base.
Securing a license will remove the limitations of a single-product offering. Solva plans to launch deposits, foreign exchange operations, card issuance, and fee-based services. For the corporate sector, the company is preparing brokerage services, alongside leasing and factoring. These business lines will operate through separate legal entities.
To prepare for bank status, the company changed its hiring structure: specialists with banking experience now make up about 70% of the staff. Internal processes are split using a run-and-change model: one part of the team supports the current lending business, while the other focuses entirely on securing the license. The estimated timeline to complete the transformation is one year.
Finteqstan previously reported that Solva earned 3 billion tenge in net profit in the first nine months of 2026. Large microfinance organizations are hitting the ceiling of single-product models and are forced to enter the banking segment to access funding and new sources of fee income.
