Kazakhstan Wants to Digitize Securities Issuance to Help SMEs Reach the Market
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Kazakhstan is considering moving securities issuance into a digital one-stop system to make it easier for small and medium-sized businesses to enter the stock market. At the same time, the regulator also wants to expand private management of pension assets, Orda.kz reports.
The Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market has published a draft law on the capital market. One of its main ideas is to simplify access to the securities market for small and medium-sized businesses. The broader goal is to help raise Kazakhstan’s stock market from frontier market to emerging market status under the FTSE Russell and MSCI classifications.
The document says companies currently have to go through complicated and disproportionate procedures. Securities issuance requires registration with the regulator and the assignment of an ISIN by the Central Depository. As a result, deadlines, costs and the administrative burden increase.
The agency proposes switching to a one-stop system and fully digitizing securities issuance. It is also considering transferring all registration and issuance functions to the Central Depository.
The regulator notes that SMEs in Kazakhstan still depend mainly on banks. Around 90% of SME financing goes through the banking sector. This limits the development of the stock market as an alternative source of financing for companies. For many businesses, it is easier to take out a bank loan than to issue bonds or list on the exchange.
At the same time, the capital market itself has been growing in formal terms. Over five years, stock market capitalization has increased by more than 40% to 39 trillion tenge. Corporate debt reached 16.2 trillion tenge. Of that amount, around 75-80% belongs to the quasi-public sector, while another 12-13% is concentrated in second-tier banks. Less than 5% remains for the real private sector.
A separate issue is the role of the Unified Accumulative Pension Fund. The regulator says the fund remains the country’s main institutional investor. At the beginning of April 2026, pension assets totaled about 25.8 trillion tenge. At the same time, private managers controlled only 0.4% of pension savings, or 99.4 billion tenge. Most of the money still remains within the ENPF system. To address this imbalance, the regulator proposes expanding private management of pension assets.
The economic effect of these changes is not expected before 2027-2028.
Original author: Alexander Zhdanov
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