Kazakhstan's financial regulator to evaluate asset quality of country's 11 largest banks

ALMATY. March 28 (Interfax) - A 2023 asset quality review (AQR) will affect 11 banks in Kazakhstan, which account for 84% of all assets and 85% of the banking sector's loan portfolio, Deputy Chairman of Kazakhstan's Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market Olzhas Kizatov said on Tuesday .

Since February, the agency has been taking preparatory measures to increase the efficiency of its interaction with banks and improve the quality of the data it receives, he said

"For this, the experience of conducting the 2022 AQR was analyzed. As a result, a list of the most common errors and recommendations for correcting them and a complete database of answers to frequently asked questions were sent to banks. Banks were also given a complete list for the quality control and completeness of data with codes for their automation," Kizatov said.

The regular 2023 AQR is scheduled from March to August in four stages: March-May - database creation, April-July - calculation of risk metrics, April-July - analysis of individual loans, July - calculation of capital adequacy.

In 2022, the Agency conducted the first regular AQR on 10 large banks whose assets account for 71% of the assets of the banking system.

The regular AQR is being done on instructions from President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in order to develop risk-based supervision.

The banking sector of Kazakhstan is represented by 21 banks.