Kazakhstan's Central Bank Issues First Tokenised Notes

The National Bank of Kazakhstan placed 10bn tenge of tokenised short-term notes on 9 November, its first issue in the form of a digital financial asset, as part of a 50bn tenge auction of 91-day notes, the central bank said in a release on 10 November. The whole 50bn tenge was placed at a weighted average yield of 15.72% a year. Demand reached 70.2bn tenge at nominal value, 1.4 times the amount offered. Settlement and the start of circulation were set for 11 November.

The issue is small, about a fifth of one routine auction, but it is the first time the regulator has used the new digital asset rules on its own paper. It moves tokenisation in Kazakhstan from private pilots towards the core of the money market.

How the issue works

The National Bank is the issuer and carries the obligations under the notes. The Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) supplied the technology to issue, place and trade them on its digital financial asset platform. According to the release, KASE was the first entity the National Bank registered as a digital asset platform operator. The KASE Clearing Center clears and settles the auction trades. Ownership is recorded on the KASE platform and reflected in the register of the Central Securities Depository.

The legal framework for issuing and trading digital financial assets took effect on 1 May 2026, the central bank said. At the exchange rate of 447.52 tenge to the dollar used by Trend, the tokenised tranche was worth about $22m and the full auction about $112m.

Context: rates and the next step

The yield sits just below the policy rate. The National Bank set its base rate at 15.75% on 23 October, when it put annual inflation at 9.3% in September, and its next decision is due on 4 December, according to its rate statement. The release does not give separate yields for the tokenised and the conventional parts of the auction, so it is not yet possible to say whether investors priced the new format differently.

The bigger test is sovereign debt. "We plan to issue tokenized government bonds jointly with the Ministry of Finance in the near future," Governor Timur Suleimenov was quoted as saying by The Astana Times, which reported that he expected the issue to take place, probably, in the first quarter of 2027. The same report said KASE hosted the first digital asset issue by a private issuer on 27 October. Caspian Post also reported the National Bank placement on 10 November.

Analysis

For now the notes change the plumbing more than the economics. A 91-day note at 15.72% does the same job for a bank whether it sits in a depository account or on a token platform. The value of the test lies in proving that issue, clearing, settlement and record keeping work on the new rails without disrupting a market the central bank uses to manage liquidity. If it works, the larger and longer Finance Ministry bonds can follow on the same system.

The open questions are practical. Secondary trading in a token held by a small group of banks may be thin. Investors will also want clear rules on custody and on how the KASE record and the depository register stay aligned if anything goes wrong. Kazakhstan is also building links with other markets, such as the AIFC capital market access initiative with Georgia, and tokenised paper could later be part of that offer.

What to watch

• 4 December: the National Bank's next base rate decision, which will shape yields on its next note auctions.
• Whether further National Bank note auctions include a tokenised tranche, and whether it grows beyond 10bn tenge.
• The first quarter of 2027: the planned tokenised government bond with the Ministry of Finance.
• Any secondary trading data that KASE publishes for the tokenised notes.

Sources: National Bank of Kazakhstan, 10 November 2026; National Bank of Kazakhstan, base rate statement, 23 October 2026; Trend, 11 November 2026; Caspian Post, 10 November 2026; The Astana Times, 13 November 2026

Image: National Bank of Kazakhstan, via nationalbank.kz