For much of the past three decades, the international wealth-management conversation has centred on a relatively small number of financial centres: Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, London and until Donald Trump’s special military operation against Iran, Dubai. Central Asia has rarely featured prominently in that discussion. That may be beginning to change.
Rainer Michael Preiss.
Kazakhstan’s Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) has developed into a credible financial jurisdiction connecting Kazakhstan and Central Asia with international capital markets. The introduction of a dedicated Family Offices Framework in 2024 was another important step in that development.
For international multi-family offices, wealth managers and private banks, the more interesting question is therefore no longer simply whether Kazakhstan can develop a family-office industry. The question is whether AIFC could eventually become the family-office and private-wealth gateway for Central Asia and eventually for the world.
Kazakhstan has experienced an extraordinary economic transformation since independence in 1991. Natural resources played a central role. Kazakhstan possesses substantial reserves of oil, natural gas, uranium, copper and other strategic commodities. But private wealth has also been created through banking, telecommunications, construction, consumer businesses, technology and financial services.
This matters because Kazakhstan is gradually entering a new stage of wealth development. The first generation of successful entrepreneurs increasingly faces questions that are familiar across every mature private-wealth market: How should wealth be preserved? How should a family’s assets be diversified internationally? How should ownership pass from one generation to the next? How should family members participate in investment decisions? And how can a family protect its wealth while simultaneously creating opportunities for future generations?
These are precisely the problems that family offices were created to address.
The Astana Financial Services Authority introduced the AIFC Family Offices Framework effective July 1, 2024. Importantly, the framework currently focuses specifically on Single Family Offices (SFOs). It allows SFOs to establish SFO Funds and provides streamlined regulatory provisions appropriate to structures managing the wealth of a single family.
That distinction is important. A Single Family Office exists primarily to serve one family. A Multi-Family Office, by contrast, provides professional services to several unrelated families and can therefore potentially undertake regulated activities including investment management, investment advice, fund management or arranging investments.
The existing framework should consequently be regarded as an important beginning rather than the final destination for the development of a broader AIFC private-wealth ecosystem. For AIFC, the next opportunity may be the development of an environment in which independent multi-family offices can flourish alongside SFOs, investment managers, private banks, lawyers, trustees, custodians and other professional advisers.
Family offices require more than favourable legislation. They need a functioning financial ecosystem. Here AIFC’s recent development is encouraging.
According to the Astana Financial Services Authority, assets under management within AIFC’s asset and fund-management sector exceeded $5.4 billion in 2025 when collective investment schemes and Managing Investments activities are considered together. By the end of 2025, the jurisdiction had 71 fund managers overseeing 177 investment funds, compared with 57 managers and 101 funds only one year earlier.
Collective investment scheme assets reached approximately $4.3 billion, while assets associated with firms conducting Managing Investments activities increased from approximately $314 million to $1.1 billion. These are still modest numbers compared with Singapore, Switzerland or the major Gulf financial centres. But the direction of travel is significant. AIFC is moving from being primarily an ambitious financial-centre project toward becoming an increasingly substantive investment-management ecosystem.
This creates an interesting opening for international MFOs. The opportunity is not necessarily to convince wealthy Kazakh families to move all their assets from Switzerland, Singapore, Dubai or London back to Kazakhstan. That would misunderstand how international private wealth operates.
A family might have custody relationships in Switzerland, an investment company in Singapore, property in London or Dubai, operating businesses in Kazakhstan and private-market investments across several jurisdictions. The modern family office sits above these individual relationships. It acts as the family’s financial architect and coordinator.
This suggests a potentially powerful role for an AIFC-based MFO: becoming the bridge between Central Asian families and the global financial system.
Rather than attempting to replicate established financial centres, AIFC could complement them. A wealthy Central Asian family might maintain assets with several international private banks while using an AIFC-based family office for strategic asset allocation, investment oversight, consolidated reporting, family governance and access to regional opportunities.
A private bank naturally provides custody, investment products, financing and portfolio management. But the family office can occupy a different position: it represents the family. An independent MFO can evaluate different banks, managers, funds and investment strategies while helping the family determine how much capital should be allocated to each.
For Central Asian entrepreneurs accustomed to dealing with multiple banks and jurisdictions, this independent Chief Investment Officer function could become increasingly valuable. The opportunity therefore extends considerably beyond portfolio management.
Perhaps the biggest strategic opportunity is geographic. AIFC should not think only about Kazakhstan. Central Asia is experiencing significant economic change. Uzbekistan is opening its economy, attracting foreign investment and developing its capital markets. The Kyrgyz Republic continues to develop its financial system. Across the wider Eurasian region, entrepreneurial wealth is expanding.
This creates the possibility of AIFC becoming a regional centre serving families from Kazakhstan and neighbouring markets. The proposition could eventually extend toward wealthy entrepreneurs and families from Uzbekistan, the Kyrgyz Republic and selected neighbouring Eurasian markets. The potential addressable market would consequently become much larger than Kazakhstan alone.
AIFC’s Development Strategy for 2026-2028 reinforces this opportunity. The strategy emphasises deeper integration with international capital markets, expansion of asset management, growth in the number of licensed financial companies and development of alternative investment products.
AIFC is targeting $23 billion of structured investments by 2028 and $30 billion by 2030. It is also seeking to develop areas including exchange-traded products, sustainable finance, Islamic finance, digital assets and asset tokenisation. These initiatives matter to family offices because sophisticated private investors increasingly allocate capital beyond conventional listed equities and bonds.
For international MFOs, one particularly interesting model could be a Singapore-AIFC corridor. Singapore already possesses the mature side of the equation: international banks, global custody, fund management, professional services, sophisticated family-office infrastructure and access to Asian and global investment markets.
AIFC offers something different: proximity to Central Asian wealth, local relationships, regional investment opportunities and an increasingly sophisticated financial jurisdiction. Singapore could function as the international portfolio and wealth-management hub. AIFC could function as the Central Asian relationship, investment-origination and regional advisory hub. The two centres therefore need not compete. They can complement each other.
The opportunity should nevertheless be viewed realistically. AIFC remains a young financial centre. It cannot replicate overnight the private-banking infrastructure, professional networks, investment expertise and institutional trust accumulated over generations in Switzerland or over several decades in Singapore.
Family-office development also requires more than regulation. It requires experienced investment professionals, lawyers, tax advisers, trustees, accountants, consolidated-reporting systems, global custody relationships and – most importantly – confidence. Private wealth is based fundamentally on trust.
For multi-family offices, regulatory structuring also requires careful consideration. The streamlined AIFC regime introduced in 2024 specifically addresses Single Family Offices. An MFO serving unrelated families may require appropriate AFSA authorisation depending upon the financial services it conducts.
For global MFOs prepared to take a long-term view, the period between 2026 and 2030 could therefore represent an unusually attractive window in which to establish relationships, build local credibility and participate in the institutionalization of Central Asian private wealth.
The author is Rainer Michael Preiss, a partner and a portfolio strategist, DAS family Office, Singapore.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Astana Times.
