AIFC-based exchanges will be able to open accounts in Kazakh banks

A special working group, comprising representatives of the Ministry of Digital Development, the National Bank and other regulators of Kazakhstan, утвердила the rules for the interaction of cryptocurrency exchanges based at the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) and second-tier banks.

This is a pilot project aimed at creating a regulatory framework ‘for the further development of Kazakhstan’s potential as a regional crypto-hub’, the Ministry of Digital Development said.

The pilot will be implemented through 2022; if successful, authorities will amend the legislation. It is expected to help organise the trading of digital assets in a regulated field and ensure investor protections.

Participants will be licensed AIFC exchanges in cooperation with second-tier banks. Details were promised to be published ‘soon’.

In addition to the Ministry of Digital Development and the National Bank, the working group also included representatives of the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market, the Financial Monitoring Agency, the Association of Financiers of Kazakhstan, the AIFC, and market participants in digital assets and the banking sectors.

Minister of Digital Development Bagdat Musin emphasised that the authorities are not only regulation of mining:

«We must earn from the crypto exchange — this is the next level in the development of financial technologies. It is necessary to create a full-fledged ecosystem so that digital assets mined using Kazakhstan’s electricity consumption are traded as much as possible on local crypto exchanges and the income stays in the country».

Earlier in April, the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market of Kazakhstan reported on the launch of a pilot project for the creation and development of exchanges based at the AIFC.

In May, Binance signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Digital Development, under which the exchange would advise the Kazakh authorities on digital asset regulation. It was also reported that the Ministry of Digital Development and the company would work on finding a solution ‘to integrate banking infrastructure into the cryptocurrency market’.

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