The Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market of the Republic of Kazakhstan held a meeting with the Kazakhstan Association of Financiers and executives of second-tier banks to discuss the regulator’s draft new Law on Banks and Banking Activity, which the President instructed should be comprehensively refined and adopted by end-2025. The draft aims to modernise banking regulation by reviewing and removing excessive or outdated rules while supporting financial technology and innovation and strengthening a transparent and stable banking system. The agency developed the draft in a short timeframe with input from financial market participants and domestic and international experts, including consultations with foreign central banks and regulators. The proposed framework sets out new approaches to bank licensing, development of Islamic finance, introduction of conduct supervision, improvements to corporate governance, and regulation of problem banks in line with international standards. Bank leaders broadly supported the main novelties in principle and proposed separate discussion of issues including lending to individual entrepreneurs, the financial ombudsman institution, co-borrower obligations, expanding the types of activities banks can undertake, and requirements for senior managers. Further discussions on these topics will be held through working groups. Participants also reviewed results from the agency’s work to assess existing regulatory legal acts, received an update on measures aimed at preventing excessive growth in consumer lending and debt burdens, and discussed financial sector use of artificial intelligence and mortgage market dynamics, including interest rates and possible involvement of second-tier banks in the housing construction savings system.

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