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.