At a Kurultai session, the issue of blocking debtors' bank accounts was raised. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Sputnik Kazakhstan.
During the session, deputy Almas Mukhametov released official statistics. According to the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market, the volume of problem loans unpaid for more than 90 days has reached 1.8 trillion tenge. And the bank accounts of more than 1.5 million people have been frozen.
"Of course, a citizen must repay the loan taken. But given that most payments are now made digitally, how will a person whose account is restricted live on? How will they pay for travel, communications, water, electricity, heating? How will they buy food and medicine? How can we tie a person's hands and feet and demand they run?! A person whose earnings do not reach their hands has reduced motivation to work. Only a citizen with a stable income can repay a loan," said Mukhametov.
Under current law, at least 50 percent of income and the minimum funds necessary for living must be preserved on the debtor's account. "But this requirement is not always fully implemented in practice. When an account is restricted, the ability to use the funds that should remain with the person is also limited. Therefore, these legal requirements must be clearly specified in contracts concluded with banks and microfinance organizations," the deputy noted.
The faction of the "Auyl" party sent its proposals to the government along with a deputy request. They are: mandatory specification in the loan agreement of the preservation of the minimum funds necessary for the debtor's living; consideration of the possibility of automatically implementing this requirement through banks' systems; clear definition of the procedure for using funds that a person can spend on basic needs when a bank account is restricted.