The Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market of the Republic of Kazakhstan reported that the President signed a new law on banks and banking activities alongside wider legislative amendments affecting financial market regulation. The package is presented as the conclusion of a five-year overhaul of banking regulation and supervision, with the stated objective of safeguarding banking system stability while strengthening competition, digitalisation and consumer protection. The reforms introduce a proportionate licensing regime through basic and universal banking licences, with basic-licence banks subject to caps on assets and minimum equity requirements and simpler prudential and supervisory processes. A new framework authorises the issuance and circulation of digital financial assets, including stablecoins whose issuance, circulation and redemption rules are set by the National Bank, while the agency is empowered to set requirements for other digital financial assets; digital asset platform operators become a newly licensed category overseen by the National Bank, and the digital tenge is given legal status as a new form of national currency with its circulation and use determined by the National Bank. The laws also provide for regulation of cryptocurrencies via planned cryptocurrency exchange organisations, with the National Bank to set permitted cryptocurrency lists and operational limits, and exchangers and other digital-asset market participants brought into financial monitoring for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing purposes. Other strands cover allowing universal banks to offer Islamic banking via ring-fenced branches and Sharia governance, a risk-based conduct and product governance model including an unfair practices list and agency powers to stop sales of harmful products, creation of a single Financial Ombudsman for banking, insurance and microfinance with binding decisions within a three-stage pre-trial dispute process, a three-regime bank insolvency framework with recovery and regulatory plans and differentiated tools for non-systemic and systemic banks including creditor loss absorption and conditional temporary state capital support, and corporate governance changes such as tighter independent director criteria and a nine-year maximum board tenure.

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