Banks account for 84% of Kazakhstan's financial sector assets, but business lending is only about 38%. What are the reasons for this low bank participation and how are loans distributed by regions and industries? Kazinform agency seeks an answer to this question.
Banks have granted 20.4 trillion tenge of new loans to businesses in 2025. The business loan portfolio has grown by 18% to 15.4 trillion tenge. Loans to individual entrepreneurs have shown the greatest growth, increasing by 35.6% to 3.1 trillion tenge. The volume of new loans granted to businesses is 20.4 trillion tenge, which is an increase of 11.9% compared to 2024, the agency reported.
Over the same period, consumer lending increased by 19.8% to 24.8 trillion tenge.
By sectors, the largest share of second-tier bank loans falls on:
- Retail trade — 46%;
- Industry — 27%;
- Construction — 6%;
- Transport — 5%.
The Agency for the Development of Financial Markets (ARRFM) points to several factors that hinder the active growth of corporate lending by banks. One of them is the tightening of monetary policy. For example, the increase in the key interest rate to 18% in 2025 led to higher borrowing costs.
“The weighted average interest rates on loans to legal entities (excluding individual entrepreneurs) amounted to 19.8% as of December 2025“, the Financial Markets Agency (FMA) cited data from the National Bank.
Another factor is the limited availability of long-term funding for banks.
“As of January 1, 2026, customer deposits accounted for 68.8% of the funding structure of second-tier banks, with the majority of them being withdrawable early“, the press service reported.
The financial regulator cited the third reason – the unequal conditions of competition between banks, development institutions and quasi-governmental organizations.
The news was published based on an information exchange agreement between Fakti.bg and Kazinform