Starting in October 2026, the National Bank of Kazakhstan will begin issuing licenses to category-one payment organizations. New market entrants will gain the right to open accounts and issue cards but cannot attract deposits or issue loans. The regulator expects this move to dilute the country’s historically bank-centric financial system.
National Bank leadership officially announced the market architecture changes at the Central Asia Fintech Summit in Almaty.
What new players can do
Category-one payment organizations will effectively function as transactional banks. As Kapital.kz reports, citing National Bank Chairman Timur Suleimenov, they will be able to manage client accounts independently, serve legal entities, and process cross-border settlements.
Their business model remains strictly limited to transactional services. The law prohibits these new companies from attracting traditional deposits or engaging in any type of lending. According to National Bank Deputy Chairman Binur Zhalenov, over 10 organizations have already shown interest in the new format and are currently preparing licensing documents.
Background: The cashless payment plateau
Introducing the new license represents logical market development rather than an attempt to solve an urgent problem. Kazakhstan currently hosts category-two payment organizations. The registry lists over 130 of them, and by the end of 2025, turnover through these non-bank providers exceeded 10 trillion tenge.
The traditional retail segment is nearing saturation. The share of cashless payments in Kazakhstan has reached 90% and plateaued. The remaining 10% falls to regions with insufficient infrastructure and narrow niche services. The regulator expects these new specialized players to fill these niches by offering B2B services and products for large non-bank ecosystems.
Digital asset integration and infrastructure
A separate focus of the new license is legal integration with the digital asset market. The regulator estimates that synergy between new transactional providers and the crypto industry should push the market to a new level. The infrastructure for this is already taking shape. According to data presented at the summit, $700 million has been allocated to the national crypto reserve, and the expected volume of digital tenge operations in 2026–2027 is estimated at roughly 2 trillion tenge.
In parallel, the market is undergoing a technological overhaul. Kazakhstan’s unified interbank QR code system has been operating since July 19, 2026. In its first weeks, it processed over 20 million transactions worth more than 400 billion tenge, already accounting for 25% of the payment market.
What’s next
Obtaining a category-one license will require applicants to meet strict prudential standards and capital requirements. The compliance process will be complex, the National Bank warns.
For the Kazakh market, the emergence of transactional players without a credit portfolio shifts competition from traditional banking to settlement speed, crypto asset integration, and B2B ecosystem services.