Kazakhstan plans banks to flag suspicious transfers to online casinos and crypto platforms

Kazakhstan is moving to make banks automatically identify transfers tied to illegal crypto exchanges, online casinos, and bookmakers. For high-risk PSPs, the practical signal is clear: transaction monitoring and affordability checks are getting pulled closer into the banking layer, not left at the merchant side.

1. The draft amendments to a joint resolution of the National Bank of Kazakhstan and the ARDFM (Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market) would strengthen controls over operations linked to illegal crypto exchanges, online casinos, and betting companies. Banks would be required to automatically detect such transfers.
2. The document does not introduce a blanket ban on cryptocurrency operations. It does, however, bar insurance companies from insuring crypto risks if the law does not classify those assets as financial instruments.
3. Credit underwriting would also get tighter. Borrowers who, over the last six months, made at least six payments to casinos or bookmakers totaling more than 300,000 tenge, or about $625, would fall into a higher-scrutiny group. Banks reviewing applications would have to take that spending into account and assess the customer’s repayment capacity more carefully.
4. Additional income checks would apply to borrowers under 21. For lenders, that means gambling-related spending is becoming part of the affordability file, not just an AML concern on a separate desk.
5. For borrowers who have previously fallen more than 90 days behind on loan payments, the proposed debt burden limit would be cut in half. In practice, that would mean smaller approved loan amounts or outright rejection.

The draft also covers reserve requirements for insurance companies, brokers, and microfinance organizations, minimum capital for rating agencies, and the procedure for checking Islamic leasing transactions. The detail that matters for payments people is that Kazakhstan is pushing suspicious gambling and crypto flows into formal bank controls, which usually makes merchant onboarding, routing, and source-of-funds checks harder to keep lightweight.