Madina Abylkassymova, Chair of the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market of the Republic of Kazakhstan, briefed the Commission on Human Rights on the Agency’s work to protect consumers’ rights in banking and other financial services. The update summarised existing borrower-protection and fraud-prevention measures across banks, insurers, capital markets and microfinance, and set out further legislative steps aimed at reducing over-indebtedness and limiting credit fraud in online channels. Key credit measures cited included a ban on issuing consumer loans to borrowers with loans more than 90 days overdue from 1 July 2024, strengthened restructuring tools including a two-year moratorium on selling problem loans to collectors until 2026, and expanded out-of-court dispute resolution through ombudsmen. A unified statutory procedure for resolving problem debt has applied since October 2023, under which banks, microfinance organisations and collectors adopted individual plans, with KZT 358 billion restructured and KZT 18 billion written off in 2024. The Agency also referenced steps to simplify out-of-court bankruptcy after 244,000 applications, including removing a mandatory debt-settlement requirement, and set quantitative constraints such as maximum consumer bank loan amounts of 2,200 monthly calculation indices (MCI) and microcredits of 1,100 MCI, plus a spousal-consent requirement for consumer loans above 1,000 MCI; with the National Bank, maximum effective interest rates were lowered to 46% for unsecured loans and 35% for secured loans, and for payday (PDL) microloans (typically up to 45 days) to 179% with a 0.3% daily cap from September 2024. On fraud controls, the Agency highlighted the statutory right (since February 2024) for individuals to opt out of taking bank loans and microcredits via eGov, used by more than 2.2 million people, and mandatory biometric identification for each online loan since June 2024, supplemented by a liveness check from August 2024. It also described the National Bank’s Anti-Fraud Center framework, including black and grey lists, with more than 64,800 suspicious operations recorded and over KZT 2.5 billion blocked since launch, and noted requirements from August 2024 to suspend interest accrual and debt collection on fraudulent loans when a Ministry of Internal Affairs decision recognises the customer as a victim, alongside new bank requirements on fraud-risk management approved in December 2024. Additional legislative measures described included a minimum 24-hour “decision period” for unsecured online consumer loans above 150 MCI, in-branch issuance for a borrower’s first consumer loan, and eGov-based consent for online lending to customers under 21 or over 55; the Agency also cited plans to expand legal bases for writing off fraudulent loans, impose anti-fraud obligations on telecoms operators, and cap SIM ownership at 10 per person, while separately preparing amendments to curb unfair insurance practices including limiting intermediary commissions on credit-linked insurance to 10% of the premium.

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