The Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market of the Republic of Kazakhstan announced it has developed a draft joint resolution with the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan that would suspend, until 1 July 2026, the provision to lower the maximum annual effective interest rate on mortgage housing loans from 25% to 20%, keeping the current cap in place. The draft is justified by current macroeconomic conditions, including an 18% National Bank base rate, with the Agency arguing that a 20% cap could reduce market-based mortgage programmes and upset the balance between credit accessibility and banking sector stability. Work is also underway on a new risk-based methodology for calculating the annual effective interest rate for mortgage loans that would incorporate the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio and enable differentiated caps by LTV to better reflect credit risk and limit excessive risk accumulation. Separately, the update notes ongoing work to broaden second-tier banks’ ability to introduce new mortgage products, including proposed legislative amendments under consideration in the Mazhilis that would allow all second-tier banks to take deposits and issue housing loans under a housing construction savings model. The draft text is available on the Open Regulatory Legal Acts portal and the Agency’s website.

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