The Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market (ARDFM) has created an expert council in its fight against financial illiteracy among the population. Its first meeting took place on 29 November.
As reported BES.media citing the regulator's press service, the council was established by order of the ARDFM chairperson in accordance with a decree from the country's President. Its aim is to develop a financial literacy development plan for Kazakhstan and to evaluate the measures being implemented.
According to the annex to the order, the council will carry out the following main functions:
- develop proposals for implementing measures aimed at improving the level of financial literacy of the population;
- identify relevant topics for each population group;
- conduct educational events;
- coordinate the actions of council members, interested state bodies, and financial sector entities for consulting and informing about ARDFM policy.
During the first meeting, the expert council highlighted the importance of population segmentation in order to apply more effective measures to improve financial literacy.
Action plans for 2025 were developed at the meeting, along with determining the frequency of meetings and the reporting format. Experts discussed the results of a study by Fingramota.kz on the level of financial literacy and made changes to the roadmap for 2025-2028.
Alexander Terentyev, the director of the ARDFM's department for consumer protection of financial services, was appointed chairperson of the council.
Another council member – Terentyev's deputy, Aigul Kanatbayeva – has also been working on solving the problem of financial illiteracy for a long time.
At the same time, the media noted that despite the long-term work of Terentyev and Kanatbayeva in the field of improving financial literacy, the amount of damage caused by fraudsters and the number of victims are rising every year.
Journalists recalled that the ARDFM had previously spent 66 million tenge on videos and articles to improve the financial literacy of Kazakhstani citizens, but this did not yield the expected results.
Assessing the effectiveness of the ARDFM's work is difficult, but the statistics are telling: in 2018, around 500 cases of online fraud were recorded, while in 2023, there were already over 21,800. That is an increase of more than 40 times.
For January-July 2024, damage from online fraudsters amounted to 6.8 billion tenge, compared to 4.1 billion tenge for the whole of 2023.
The level of debt among the population is also growing: over 80% of working Kazakhstani citizens have consumer loans. Meanwhile, businesses lack sufficient financing, a point the country's President has repeatedly noted.
As BES.media writes, despite the obvious problems and inefficient spending of funds, no one has been held accountable. Instead, a new body with expanded powers is being created.
Experts, for their part, consider the government's financial literacy concept to be non-functional.
According to Yuri Li, founder of the public foundation 'Financial Culture of Kazakhstan', the Agency for Financial Monitoring (AFM) operates more successfully than the ARDFM, and the actions of police officers handing out flyers at banks are more effective than the website Fingramota.kz.
Li called for tougher penalties for credit institutions that issue loans without properly verifying the borrower's identity. Lawyer Marina Lapteva supported this position, noting that the threat of losing a licence could put a stop to fraudulent loans.