BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 16. Mastercard
identifies three interconnected areas for further cooperation with
Kazakhstan: technology, knowledge, and human capital, Sanzhar
Zhamalov, Country Manager for Kazakhstan and Central Asia at
Mastercard, told Trend in an exclusive interview.
Zhamalov said that Kazakhstan has made significant progress in
digital payments in recent years and is now one of the most highly
digitalized markets in the region. The country's payments ecosystem
is becoming increasingly sophisticated and interconnected year by
year.
"We look at this transformation not only through transaction
statistics. Over the past few years, Mastercard, together with its
partners, has conducted a series of studies on the Kazakhstan
market, covering digital payments and fintech, e-commerce, SMEs,
artificial intelligence, tourism, and cybersecurity. In September
this year, we also presented a study on Islamic banking in Central
Asia. This kind of analysis helps us better understand how the
economy is evolving and where new growth opportunities are
emerging," the country manager said.
Zhamalov noted that e-commerce is one of the clearest examples.
According to Mastercard's study of Kazakhstan's retail e-commerce
market, published in September 2026, the market reached 4.92
trillion tenge ($10.92 billion) in 2025, with 363 million online
purchases.
"Importantly, the number of transactions is growing
significantly faster than the average transaction value, indicating
that online shopping is increasingly becoming part of everyday
life. We forecast that by 2030, the market could reach 11.1
trillion tenge ($24.6 billion), with the number of purchases
approaching 1.4 billion," he said.
Mastercard sees the main areas for further growth in e-commerce
and cross-border trade, the digitalization of small and
medium-sized businesses, the development of new payment
instruments, and greater interoperability between them.
"For a cardholder, it matters less which technological rails a
payment runs on - whether it is a bank card, QR code, instant
payment, digital wallet, or, potentially, tokenized money. What
matters is that the payment is convenient, fast, and secure," the
country manager said.
Zhamalov added that cross-border payments are another important
area of growth. Kazakhstan is closely connected to Central Asian
countries and other markets through economic ties and the movement
of people. Moving money across borders should therefore become as
simple and seamless as making a domestic payment.
"The next phase of development will also be shaped by AI and new
forms of digital money. We believe different payment technologies
will coexist, and Mastercard's role is to help connect them while
supporting security, trust, convenience, and a seamless user
experience," he said.
Zhamalov said that Kazakhstan’s businesses are moving from the
digitalization of payments to the digitalization of financial
management as a whole.
"The Mastercard SME Confidence Index 2026 shows that cashless
payments are already the predominant form of payment for 47% of
SMEs in Kazakhstan, while more than half of businesses operate
through an omnichannel model, combining online and offline
channels.
The next stage will therefore be the digitalization of
companies’ broader financial activities - from expense management
and payments to suppliers and employees to analytics, access to
financing, and international payments. One tool we can offer is
business cards, which help separate personal and corporate
expenses, pay for purchases and business travel costs such as fuel,
set employee spending limits, and automate certain aspects of
financial management. Currently, 58% of SMEs do not use business
cards, so there is still significant potential for businesses to
explore how these tools can simplify their day-to-day operations",
the country manager said.
According to him, simple solutions are particularly important
for small businesses. Tap on Phone, for example, enables an
entrepreneur to accept contactless payments using an ordinary
smartphone.
"We also see significant potential in embedded finance. In
Kazakhstan, Mastercard is applying this approach in partnership
with Beksar, helping to develop a scoring system to support
financing decisions. The program is designed to reach around 20,000
small businesses, at least 60% of which are women-owned", he
said.
Zhamalov noted that cross-border payments are another important
area. For companies working with international suppliers or
expanding into export markets, the speed and transparency of
payments are becoming increasingly important. Overall, payments are
increasingly becoming part of a broader ecosystem that brings
together analytics, financial management, access to financing, and
security for both domestic and international business.
Furthermore, he said that artificial intelligence is already
part of the payments infrastructure. At Mastercard, machine
learning algorithms are used to analyze transactions, assess risk,
and detect fraud. Today, AI is becoming increasingly integrated
across the payments ecosystem - from security and risk management
to customer experience and personalization.
"To assess the potential of this technology specifically in the
local market, Mastercard, together with its partners, initiated the
Kazakhstan AI Country Report 2025. According to the study, AI
adoption could contribute an additional 0.5–2% to Kazakhstan’s
annual GDP growth over the medium term by increasing productivity
across more than half of jobs", Zhamalov noted.
According to him, the financial sector is already among the
leaders in this transformation: 75% of banks in Kazakhstan use AI
for credit scoring, fraud prevention, and marketing. For the
payments industry, fraud prevention is particularly important. AI
can analyze a large number of signals in near real time, as a
transaction is taking place, and identify patterns that would be
difficult to detect by looking at an individual transaction alone.
This is becoming increasingly relevant as fraud schemes grow more
sophisticated and fraudsters themselves begin to use AI.
"We are therefore seeing a shift from reacting to incidents
after they occur towards a detect – predict – prevent model:
identifying a threat, anticipating it, and preventing it. In
Kazakhstan, we also offer dedicated cyber resilience solutions. For
example, our RiskRecon solution helps assess the cyber risks of
organizations and their suppliers across approximately 40
parameters", he said.
The country manager added that another important area is
personalization. Banks in Kazakhstan are already using AI
assistants, speech analytics, and intelligent models for customer
interaction. In one of the cases featured in the report, AI enables
customers to perform more than 140 banking operations by voice,
with 99% accuracy and a response time of less than three seconds.
At the same time, as AI capabilities expand, data protection,
cybersecurity, and responsible use of the technology must advance
just as rapidly. For the financial industry, trust remains just as
important as speed and convenience.
Moreover, he said that Kazakhstan already has a strong
foundation for the further adoption of AI in the financial and
payments sectors. In the Government AI Readiness Index 2025, the
country ranks 58th out of 195 countries, having moved up 16
positions in just one year. Kazakhstan has a well-developed mobile
banking sector, while banks and fintech companies are actively
testing new technologies. Computing infrastructure is expanding,
and the regulatory framework is taking shape.
At the same time, he pointed out that infrastructure alone is
not enough to scale AI. The Kazakhstan AI Country Report identifies
several constraints, including a shortage of high-quality
sector-specific data and experienced professionals, uneven access
to infrastructure, and a relatively low level of corporate R&D.
For the financial industry, this is compounded by requirements
related to cybersecurity, data protection, and transparency in
decision-making.
"The next stage could be the development of agentic AI, where
artificial intelligence not only provides recommendations but also
performs certain actions on a user’s behalf - for example,
comparing offers and making a purchase within predefined
parameters. Mastercard is developing this area globally and sees it
as one of the promising directions for the future of digital
commerce," Zhamalov said.
According to him, for such solutions to become widely adopted,
clear rules need to be established: how user consent is confirmed,
how an AI agent is identified, what actions it is authorized to
perform, and who is responsible for a transaction. Dialogue between
government, the financial sector, and technology companies is
particularly important here. Kazakhstan already has experience with
this type of collaboration, including regulatory sandboxes, digital
tenge and digital asset pilots, and the development of anti-fraud
infrastructure.
"As a rule, we discuss specific new AI pilots once they have
been launched. However, the high level of digitalization in the
financial sector and the market’s readiness to test new models
provide a strong foundation for the further adoption of these
technologies in Kazakhstan", Zhamalov said.
According to him, Kazakhstan is particularly interesting in this
area because we can already point not only to potential
opportunities, but also to projects that have been implemented.
Mastercard's approach is that digital assets should not exist in
isolation from the traditional financial system. The key is to
build secure and regulated bridges between different forms of money
and payment rails.
"Some of the first examples include the digital tenge card,
implemented jointly with the National Payment Corporation of
Kazakhstan and Eurasian Bank on the Mastercard network. Within the
Astana International Financial Centre, we are also issuing crypto
cards together with Bybit and SilkPay. These solutions enable
digital assets to be used for everyday payments, with automatic
conversion into tenge", he said.
Zhamalov pointed out that another area is crypto assets.
Kazakhstan has piloted a tenge-denominated stablecoin with the
participation of Intebix, Mastercard, Solana, and Eurasian Bank.
Mastercard Crypto Credential is also already available in the
market, allowing users to use easy-to-understand aliases instead of
complex blockchain addresses, while providing the necessary
mechanisms to verify transaction participants.
"In February 2026, we took another step forward: a solution
powered by Mastercard Move enables Binance Kazakhstan users to fund
their digital wallets to purchase digital assets, transfer funds
between wallets, and withdraw funds to Mastercard cards.
All these projects point in the same direction: the goal is not
to create a parallel financial world, but to integrate digital
assets into the existing regulated financial infrastructure.
Stablecoins are particularly interesting, as their potential
extends far beyond crypto trading - including cross-border B2B
payments, remittances, payouts, settlement, and liquidity
management", he said.
The country manager added that looking ahead, traditional
currencies, stablecoins, tokenized bank deposits, CBDCs, and other
forms of value are likely to coexist.
"This makes interoperability, regulation, KYC/AML, consumer
protection, and cybersecurity increasingly important. We see
Mastercard’s role as bringing the same principles of trust,
security, and interoperability that underpin traditional payment
infrastructure into the world of digital assets", he said.
Zhamalov emphasized that Kazakhstan remains one of Mastercard’s
key markets in Central Asia. The nature of Mastercard's work in the
country has evolved significantly in recent years and today extends
far beyond payment technologies.
"I would highlight three interconnected areas for our continued
cooperation: technology, knowledge, and human capital. The
foundation of this work remains the five-year Digital Country
Partnership agreement signed with the Government of Kazakhstan in
2023. We work systematically with the National Bank, the National
Payment Corporation, other government institutions, banks, fintech
companies, and businesses. Mastercard also operates a regional hub
in Almaty", he said.
The first area is payment cards, technology, and infrastructure,
including e-commerce, cross-border payments, SME digitalization,
cybersecurity, AI, and digital assets.
The second is knowledge and analytics. In recent years,
Mastercard and its partners have produced a series of studies,
including Digital Payment Trends, Kazakhstan Fintech Market,
Kazakhstan AI Country Report, SMEs in Kazakhstan: Challenges and
Opportunities, the SME Confidence Index, and a study of the
e-commerce market.
"Industry-specific analytics is another important part of this
work. Together with Kazakh Tourism and Visit Almaty, we use our
Mastercard Tourism Insights platform to analyze the journey of
international visitors - from trip planning to spending patterns -
and develop recommendations for tourism development and promotion,
presented in our Tourism in Almaty reports. More recently, we also
presented the study Islamic Banking in Central Asia: A Window of
New Opportunities. According to the study, Kazakhstan is currently
Central Asia’s largest Islamic banking market, with approximately
$621 million in assets, while the regional market could approach
$2.5 billion by 2028", the country manager said.
He noted that for Mastercard, the value of research lies in
looking at a challenge or opportunity from different perspectives,
understanding its underlying causes, and identifying practical
solutions.
According to him, the third area is human capital. Over the past
three years, the number of employees at Mastercard’s regional hub
in Almaty has increased eightfold. Mastercard works with
universities and students in Kazakhstan through lectures and
practical programs. He said that Mastercard recruits students and
cooperates with AIESEC in Kazakhstan on mentoring and professional
development for young people, while the Girls4Tech program
introduces school students, particularly girls, to STEM subjects,
cybersecurity, and data analytics.
"All of these are parts of the same ecosystem. The future of
fintech is shaped not only by technology, but also by the people
who can develop and use it safely. That is why we want to continue
combining Mastercard’s global technology expertise with local data,
knowledge, and talent in Kazakhstan. A number of new initiatives
are currently at various stages of discussion with our partners. As
always, we disclose details once they are ready for an official
announcement", Mastercard's country manager concluded.
