ASTANA – Where one lives in Kazakhstan apparently helps to determine what he or she will buy using credit, according to ranking.kz. Residents of the capital take property loans, while residents of the country’s southern regions use consumer credit to buy cars and furniture, according to the 2017 end-of-year data.
Residents of Almaty region prefer taking consumer loans. They use 80 percent of retail loans to purchase household items and furniture, finance vacations and weddings and use them for store credit and credit cards. Consumer loans in the region increased by 23 percent to 22.8 billion tenge (US$71.2 million).
The Kyzylorda region takes the second spot with a 76.2-percent consumer loan share. The 19-billion tenge growth (US$59.4 million) to 105.2 billion tenge (US$328.8 million) represented a 22.1-percent increase.
South Kazakhstan region ranked third in consumer loan borrowing, growing 18.2 percent, or 30.5 billion tenge (US$95.3 million), to 197.4 billion tenge (US$617 million).
Capital residents, who prefer to use loans for housing purchases, cut their borrowing to 43.2 percent of total consumer loans. Their share of mortgage loans represents 47 percent of all retail loans. The 260.9-billion tenge (US$815.5 million) mortgage volume grew by 25.6 percent, or 53.1 billion tenge (US$170 million).
The northern region followed Astana in real estate borrowing. Its share of mortgages was 32.9 percent, an 18.4-percent increase to 3.7 billion tenge (US$11.6 million).
Aktobe region, with a 30.6-percent share, ranked third among mortgage borrowers. The 56.6 billion tenge (US$176.6 million) in home loans rose 13.1 percent, or 6.5 billion tenge (US$20.3 million).
Property loans were not as popular in the Almaty, Kyzylorda and Zhambul regions. Almaty mortgages fell 0.6 percent to 305.3 billion tenge (US$954.3 million).
By the end of 2017, Kazakh second-tier banks supplied a 12.5-percent credit increase of 501.2 billion tenge (US$1.6 billion) to 4.5 trillion tenge (US$14 billion). The figure represented a 3-percent decline compared to 4 trillion tenge (US$12.5 billion) in 2016.
The 386.2 billion tenge (US$1.2 billion) growth in retail loans to 2.9 trillion tenge (US$9 billion) related mostly to consumer loans. The share of retail loans in the total portfolio increased 62.7 percent-64.3 percent during the year.
The hike in mortgage loans affected the results by 11.5 percent, or 113.2 billion tenge (US$353 million), to a total of 1.1 trillion tenge (US$3.4 billion).
Car loans and other types of borrowing, which fell 11.6 percent, represented 13 percent of all loans.
Kazakh banks finished last year with losses of 18.7 billion tenge (US$58.5 million), reported ranking.kz. This year’s January profit at second-tier banks, however, was 54.9 billion tenge (US$171.6 million), a 38.9-percent increase compared to 2017.
Ranking.kz monitors project deals within the Kazakh economy in the rankings format. The main themes are the banking sector, Kazakh budget and sectorial and regional economy.
