Kazakhstan has refused to further tighten requirements for citizens' debt burden coefficients. After assessing the effect of previously introduced measures, financial regulators considered the current slowdown in retail lending as a targeted result and decided to maintain the current conditions for borrowers, shifting focus to supporting the real sector of the economy. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
During a joint meeting of the government's economic bloc, National Bank Chairman Timur Suleimenov stated that the current macroeconomic situation does not require introducing additional barriers for individuals.
"At the moment, based on an analysis of the results of already taken measures, we have made a joint decision to refuse to tighten requirements for the DBR (debt burden ratio) and LDR (long-term debt ratio), and also not to reduce the AER (annual effective rate) on mortgages," explained the head of the monetary regulator.
According to him, the previously implemented set of measures made it possible to stop the excessive growth of unsecured loans, which was one of the main drivers of inflation.
Deputy Prime Minister — Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin confirmed that the consumer lending sector has entered a stage of objective stabilization. At the same time, the quality of existing loan portfolios does not show systemic deterioration.
As noted by Deputy Chairman of the ARDFM (Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market) Dauren Salimbayev, the default rate on unsecured loans to individuals remains at 1.5%. The growth in the total volume of overdue debt (NPL 90+) is a cumulative indicator of past periods and does not reflect the quality of newly issued loans.
Participants paid special attention to the development of BNPL (buy now, pay later) services and the e-commerce segment, whose volume reached 3.77 trillion tenge by 2025. The National Bank and the ARDFM are introducing legislative amendments: if a third financing party (including marketplaces) is involved in the purchase process, it will bear strict obligations to protect consumers, even without a banking license.
At the same time, the ARDFM reduced the risk-weighting coefficient for loans to small and medium-sized businesses to 50% (compared to 100% standard and up to 350% for consumer loans), which frees up bank capital for direct lending to enterprises.
In March 2026, it was reported that from July 1, 2026, new rules for assessing the ratio of citizens' debts to their income — DBR and LDR — would come into effect in Kazakhstan. National Bank Chairman Timur Suleimenov then stated that these changes would not close access to loans for the average Kazakhstani. He said that before July, the authorities should introduce updated approaches to calculating the debt burden ratio and the debt-to-income ratio. Both indicators were to be used to assess whether a borrower can service their obligations. According to the head of the National Bank, the goal of the changes is to limit the issuance of loans to people without official income or with low incomes who may not be able to repay the debt.