ASTANA – The turnover of transactions in digital tenge will exceed 200 billion (US$401.1 million) by the end of the year, said Binur Zhalenov, chief digital officer and advisor to the National Bank chair at the Nov. 15 Financial Congress.
Digital tenge platform helps to ensure transparent government spending, reduce the cost and speed up cross-border payments. Photo credit: Kazinform.
Zhalenov said that the digital tenge platform helps to ensure transparent government spending, reduce costs, speed up cross-border payments and introduce other innovations, reported Kazinform.
Kazakhstan is a global leader in non-cash payment penetration, and he said the whole process of getting a financial service in the nation, from opening a bank account to final settlements, has been digitized.
“The National Bank has created a sustainable interbank infrastructure, processing almost 87% of all non-cash transactions in the economy. Our identification data exchange center helps financial institutions provide services in a remote digital format, processing nearly 2.5 million requests monthly,” he noted.
According to Zhalenov, banks are no longer just traditional financial institutions, but rather a large digital ecosystem, including e-commerce services, government services and much more.
The digital tenge is a digital form of the Kazakh currency that will be issued as a unique digital sequence (tokens) or electronic records stored on special electronic wallets.
Last year, Kazakhstan launched the initial phase of the digital tenge project and full-scale implementation is expected by the end of 2025.
In celebration of national currency day – tenge, on Nov. 15, the National Bank announced plans to launch a Digital Investment Coin in the first quarter of 2025.
