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Kazakhstan's National Bank talks COVID's impact on IT segment, mobile banking in country

ICT Materials 6 November 2020 05:01 (UTC +04:00)
Kazakhstan's National Bank talks COVID's impact on IT segment, mobile banking in country

BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov.5

By Nargiz Sadikhova – Trend:

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on the strengthening of the IT segment and the functionality of internet and mobile banking in the financial market of Kazakhstan, the National Bank of Kazakhstan told Trend.

According to the bank, by the introduction of quarantine measures in Kazakhstan, the development of remote services has become a necessity, including in the banking sector.

"For facilitating the market transition to remote customer service (when opening accounts, issuing payment cards, etc.), in April 2020, the National Bank in turn launched a pilot system for remote identification of bank customers. The basis of this system was the use of biometric tools for identifying citizens," the bank said.

Also, to develop the national infrastructure of the financial market and create conditions for the development of the financial technology market, the Board of the National Bank of Kazakhstan adopted a resolution ‘On approval of the concept for the development of financial technologies and innovations for 2020-2025’, the bank noted.

This resolution includes a description of global trends and prerequisites in the development of digital financial services, goals and key priorities in the field of financial technologies, strategic initiatives and approaches to their implementation, the bank said.

According to the bank, the current positive dynamics of the development of non-cash payments remains on the Kazakhstani market.

"Over the past four years, the volume of non-cash transactions increased 10 times and from January through July of this year amounted to 15.7 trillion tenge ($37.1 billion). After the introduction of quarantine in the country in April, the volume of non-cash transactions decreased by 18 percent," the bank added.

"However, already in May, this indicator grew by 33 percent. The total volume of transactions carried out from March through July 2020 amounted to 12.2 trillion tenge ($28.8 billion), having soared over two times compared to the same period of 2019, the bank added.

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