ForteBank on how the liquidity market is changing in Kazakhstan

At the ITS IDEAS 2026: Markets in Motion side event, held as part of AFD 2026, an open discussion took place on institutional capital and effective liquidity placement — one of the key topics for Kazakhstan's financial market.
ForteBank CFO Stanislav Levin noted that in recent years the conditions for banks' liquidity management have changed significantly. The increase in minimum reserve requirements has made tenge liquidity effectively a scarcer resource. This intensifies competition among banks for funding in the national currency, supports the attractiveness of tenge-denominated instruments, helps strengthen the tenge exchange rate, and at the same time acts as one of the factors curbing inflation.
According to Stanislav Levin, in these conditions banks are naturally becoming more conservative in placing free funds. When liquidity is highly valued and regulatory requirements call for maintaining significant reserves of high-quality assets, priority is given to the most reliable, liquid, and transparent instruments. This limits institutional players' — such as banks' — interest in more complex investment solutions, but ensures the stability of the financial system amid ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty.
Particular attention was paid to client behavior against the backdrop of the persistently high base rate. As the ForteBank CFO noted, the tenge today remains the unequivocally preferred savings currency, since deposit rates in the national currency significantly exceed the returns on foreign-currency deposits. This supports strong demand for tenge instruments from both the population and businesses. At the same time, a new trend is forming in the market. According to the bank's observations, corporate clients are showing growing interest in operations and financing in Chinese yuan. One of the key reasons is the possibility of raising financing at rates that, in a number of cases, can be more competitive compared to dollar-denominated borrowing. This reflects both the strengthening of trade and economic ties with China and the gradual diversification of the currency structure of Kazakhstani companies' business.
In his remarks, Stanislav Levin also emphasized the significant potential for developing the market for risk management instruments. As companies' financial maturity grows, the need increases not only for classic credit and deposit products, but also for solutions to manage currency, interest rate, and commodity risks.
In the ForteBank CFO's view, the next stage of development for Kazakhstan's financial market should be the wider adoption of derivative financial instruments. Currency, interest rate, and commodity derivatives can provide businesses with effective hedging mechanisms, increase the predictability of cash flows, and reduce companies' sensitivity to market volatility. Growing client demand for such products will naturally stimulate further improvement of the market's trading and settlement infrastructure.
Today, Kazakhstan has all the necessary prerequisites for such development: a stable banking system, a growing capital market, interest from international investors, and developing financial infrastructure. As the corporate sector's financial maturity increases, demand for risk management instruments will grow, forming the basis for new products and new opportunities for market participants.