According to the National Bank of Kazakhstan, total lending to small and medium-sized enterprises reached 12.7 trillion tenge by the end of August 2026, up 24.4% year-on-year.
Of this amount, three cities of national significance accounted for 68.3% of all SME loans: Almaty accumulated 5.2 trillion tenge, Astana 2.8 trillion tenge, and Shymkent 661.9 billion tenge. The remaining 17 regions of Kazakhstan accounted for less than a third of all loans.
By comparison, the SME loan portfolio in Almaty alone was roughly 1.6 times larger than the combined total of all 17 regions. In the Ulytau region, SME loans stood at 47.2 billion tenge, in North Kazakhstan at 139 billion tenge, and in the Turkistan region at 140.5 billion tenge.
The share of SMEs in total business lending reached 64.5%, up from 59.5% a year earlier. Total bank lending to the economy reached 46.1 trillion tenge by the end of August 2026, rising 12.9% year-on-year.
