Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 18
By Fakhri Vakilov – Trend:
The total amount of non-cash payments and transfers in Kazakhstan in national currency amounted to 891.9 trillion tenge, of which 93.6 percent was conducted through the payment systems of the National Bank, Trend reports with reference to the National Bank of Kazakhstan.
Mostly, the population used the Interbank Money Transfer System (IMTS) and the Interbank Clearing System (ICS).
As of January 1, 2019, there are 20 payment systems, 42 payment organizations and 5 significant payment service providers registered in the National Bank.
The population for the transfer of money outside the country mainly uses international money transfer systems such as Golden Crown, Leader, Faster, Western Union, Moneygram, Unistream and Contact.
In 2018, the volume of money transfers through international money transfer systems (IMTS) increased by 20.4 percent compared with 2017. The volume of transactions carried out through the IMTS in Kazakhstan increased by 44.7 percent. The largest share of money sent across Kazakhstan was made by transfers through the Golden Crown (more than 70 percent).
In 2018, 42.9 million transactions worth 834.6 trillion tenge were conducted via IMTS and ICS. Compared to 2017, the number of payments increased by 17.5 percent, the amount of payments decreased by 1.9 percent.
There were 174,600 transactions in the amount of 3.4 trillion tenge (in 2017 –149,000 payments in the amount of 3.5 trillion tenge) were carried out for one transaction day through the payment systems of the regulator.
In 2018, the number of transactions conducted through the IMTS increased by 11.1 percent compared with 2017 and amounted to 16.8 million transactions by 828.1 billion tenge, showing a decrease of 1.9 percent compared to the same period last year.
The National Bank explained that the reduction in the amount of payments in the IMTS is mainly due to a decrease in the volume (by 18.8 percent) of the purchase and sale of securities issued by residents of Kazakhstan. These operations are usually carried out by financial organizations with available liquid funds.
Moreover, the increase in the number of payments is associated with an increase in deductions for compulsory social health insurance.
The Interbank Money Transfer System (IMTS) is a system-significant payment system in the country, through which the largest and most urgent payments are made for financial sector operations.
The main volume of payments made through the IMTS accounted for transactions with government securities of Kazakhstan (44.1 percent of the total volume of payments in the IMTS), placement and withdrawal of short-term deposits for up to 1 year (28.2 percent), as well as the purchase and sale of foreign currency and precious metals (10.3 percent).
The volume of payments for goods and services amounted to 8.1 percent and the volume of payments to the budget and payments from the budget to 3.7 percent.
There were 26.2 million transactions worth 6,443.1 billion tenge were conducted through ICS, which is 22.0 percent and 0.2 percent more than the number and amount of payments, respectively, made in 2017.
The growth in the number of payments is associated with an increase in the deductions for compulsory social health insurance by more than 4 times.
The interbank clearing system (ICS) is a significant payment system in Kazakhstan, focused on making retail payments to bank customers for small amounts (payments in the C2B, C2G sector, utilities, tax payments, payments for goods and services).
The bulk of payments made through the ICS accounted for mandatory social contributions, pension contributions and deductions for social health insurance (48.4 percent of the total number of payments to the ICS).
The share of payments for goods and services in 2018 was 6.8 percent of the total and 54.0 percent of the total payments, while payments to the budget and payments from the budget - 16.4 percent and 17.2 percent, respectively.
($1-379.80 tenge on Apr. 18)
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