At the Central Asia Fintech Summit 2026, Madina Abylkassymova, chair of the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market of the Republic of Kazakhstan, reported that the regulator had assessed the digital readiness of 94 financial organizations and identified 1,200 actions, with an individual development plan for each institution. The agency will establish a digital transformation office to monitor implementation, adding firm-level execution to its broader digital supervision and financial services agenda. The assessment covered 23 banks, 25 insurers, 31 securities market participants and 15 microfinance organizations against more than 100 criteria, including process digitization, data quality, IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence use and staff capabilities. On a scale of five, banks recorded the highest average digital maturity score at 3.66, followed by insurers at 3.4, microfinance organizations at 3.1 and securities market participants at 3.05. About 75% of banks use AI, although Abylkassymova stressed that IT investment alone does not ensure digital maturity without skilled staff and effective use of technology across business processes. She also outlined a shift toward digital by default services under the capital and insurance market development programs through 2030, including a single digital window for securities and online insurance contracting and payments. Other priorities include moving from Open Banking to Open Finance and expanding tokenization where it lowers costs, improves efficiency and delivers practical benefits. Kazakhstan’s launch of tokenized government securities could provide a basis for wider adoption in financial markets.

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