The Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market of the Republic of Kazakhstan has reviewed its tightening of microfinance and debt collection regulation, covering financial resilience, responsible lending, borrower protection and enforcement. The framework raises minimum capital for microfinance organizations from KZT 100 million to KZT 200 million, limits nonperforming microloans overdue by more than 90 days to 10% and applies unified pricing caps of 179% annual effective interest and 0.3% per day. It also restricts lending to certain higher-risk borrowers, prohibits unsecured loans with terms exceeding five years and requires a 24-hour decision period for online microloans. Debt collection reforms strengthen management and independence requirements, restrict affiliations and conflicts of interest, and require agencies to attempt debt settlement before taking collection measures on purchased claims against individuals. Administrative fines have doubled, while employees may face individual administrative and criminal liability for abuse of authority. A moratorium on assigning individuals’ debts to collection agencies has been extended until May 1, 2027. Since 2023, the agency has conducted 824 inspections, imposed 310 supervisory measures and issued 2,010 fines totaling KZT 693.4 million. It has revoked licenses from 99 microfinance organizations, suspended 29 licenses and removed 47 collection agencies from the register. During 2025, microfinance organizations and collection agencies fully or partly wrote off principal, interest, fines or penalties for 33,900 borrowers and restructured debts for 722,000 borrowers. The new Banking Law also introduces bank-like risk management and internal control requirements for microfinance organizations and establishes a self-regulatory framework.

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