June 9, 2023
BanksKazakhstan's Banking Sector Overview (2012-2022)
The banking sector is an important indicator of the socio-economic state of the country since it reflects internal and global development trends.
The last few years have been tensed for Kazakhstan: the COVID-19 pandemic, and the military conflict in Ukraine, which led to a mutual exchange of sanctions, a rapid increase in inflation and retaliatory measures by central banks worldwide. All these and other factors undoubtedly had a significant impact on Kazakhstan's banking sector, but key market development trends were formed long before these events.
Over the past 10 years, the market has undergone several significant changes that have affected the corporate structure, assets and liabilities, as well as STB work as a whole. Bankruptcy, mergers and acquisitions take place almost every year. At the same time, the market concentration continues: large banks are growing, and smaller and weaker ones are forced to survive.
Having studied the dynamics of recent years, we see that significant structural problems are being formed outside the market. And due to this, the measures taken to improve banks may sometimes be insufficient.
Thus, the number of real and active corporate borrowers has decreased in the economy. Most likely, macroeconomic problems negatively affect the productivity of enterprises, and the state support provided to businesses masks the real picture.
In such conditions, the standard systems of banks for decision-making and analysis of the financial model of projects no longer work. Many companies and even entire industries have a bad credit history. In addition, everything is complicated by the fact that a significant number of companies are closed every year, and new ones are opened instead of them. Banks are forced to hold on to their stable customers, offering them preferential terms.
The reduction in long-term lending to legal entities is forcing banks to reorient more and more on retail customers. In fact, over the past 5 years, the retail segment has become the locomotive of the development of the banking system. Rapid growth is fraught with serious challenges – in the retail segment, risks can accumulate imperceptibly and be realized at a very high speed and with great consequences.
The growth of the retail segment has brought digitalization to the fore. Banks are actively building digital ecosystems to attract and retain customers, they were among the first to use their big data for business development. Many banks have learned to form customer portraits more clearly: to determine their needs, and to study their consumer habits. The output with standard products is already ineffective.
We tried to analyze and identify the main trends in the country's banking market from a wide angle (zoom out) over the past 10 years, to study changes in the behaviour of banks and their customers.
Read more in the paper
Sunggat Rysbek
AnalystTimur Dauranov
Senior AnalystJune 9, 2023
Banks09 October 23
How not to be unemployed: what you need to know about the future labour market
Experts of the World Economic Forum (WEF) presented new forecasts for business, professions and skills development in the next 5 years. The study is based on surveys of the largest employers and their expectations regarding business development, professions and skills. The survey involved 803 companies employing more than 11.3 million people, covering 27 industry clusters and 45 economies worldwide.
Key insights:
- Employers expect structural changes in 23% of jobs;
- The "green" economy is the main source of new jobs;
- Economic challenges are the greatest threat to the labour market;
- Advanced technologies will remain a key driver in business transformation;
- About 75% of the surveyed companies plan to implement AI by 2027;
- Up to 43% of all business tasks will be performed by machines in the coming 5 years;
- The most popular profession is artificial intelligence and machine learning specialists;
- Analytical thinking is a key skill for a successful career;
- 47% of the surveyed employers evaluate their skills when selecting candidates, and 45% require a diploma;
- In the next five years, 44% of the basic skills of employees will become obsolete and 6 out of 10 employees will have to undergo training.
One-off Researches
labour marketBusinessAlexandra Molchanovskaya
06 September 23
Financial analytics: How much do we spend on routine expenditures?
We face a variety of expenses that vary depending on our needs, circumstances and preferences in our daily lives. Some people need quality food, others need to repay loans regularly and for some entertainment and recreation become a priority. However, the question often arises: Do we have enough income to meet all these needs? What amount of money is needed to achieve a comfortable standard of living? Is it possible to classify yourself as middle class by your expenses?
In this regard, we decided to analyze the core expenditures that each person or family needs to achieve a minimum level of comfort and meet basic life needs. As a result of the study, we divided the employees of Astana and Almaty cities into 6 groups depending on their income and expenses and also determined the size of each class: the least well-off, low-income, lower middle class, middle class, prosperous and well-off.
Key insights:
- An average of 246.3 thousand tenge or 60% of salary is spent on core expenditures every month.
- The largest amount of daily expenses is observed in the first 4 days after receiving a wage.
- At least 450 thousand tenge per month is required to satisfy all basic needs for a comfortable life in megapolicies.
- Almost half of the employed in Astana and Almaty cities (49%) do not have enough earnings to cover their daily expenses.
- The is an essential disparity between workers and cities - there are 4 times more workers with financial difficulties in Almaty than in the capital.
- Only 4.4% of employees with wages from 700 thousand to 1.2 million tenge, whose daily expenses account for 40-50% of income, can be attributed to the middle class.
- Employees with above-average incomes make up the smallest share of the employed population - 2%.
One-off Researches
Standard of livingConsumptionAlexandra Molchanovskaya
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