The Ultimate Value Proposition: Kaspi

Introduction

Kaspi is a one of a kind company. I can’t think of another business that provides more value for its users. Here is how they do it and capture it and maintain it and how it could be disrupted.

How Kaspi Creates Value

Kaspi creates value by being the digital operating system for life in Kazakhstan.

For Consumers: Instead of users downloading 40 to 50 different apps for different needs, Kaspi bundles everything into a single app. Consumers can shop for products with free delivery, buy groceries, book flights and holidays, pay household bills without commissions, transfer money instantly, access government services like digital passports and tax payments, and instantly access credit.

For Merchants: Kaspi serves a massive role in helping small and medium businesses grow. It provides access to Kaspi’s massive consumer base, alongside tools for payment processing, delivery logistics, targeted advertising, instant B2B invoicing, cash register software, and automated tax reporting.

How Kaspi Captures Value

Kaspi uses popular, free services like P2P transfers and bill payments to attract and engage users. Once engaged, it monetizes across three highly integrated platforms.

Payments Platform: Generates revenue through transaction fees paid by merchants for processing payments, and interest earned on the interest free cash balances sitting in customer and merchant current accounts.

Marketplace Platform: Captures value through seller fees charged to third party merchants. It also earns high margin revenue from Kaspi Delivery and Kaspi Advertising. For its first-party businesses, like e-Grocery and e-Cars, it captures direct retail revenue.

Fintech Platform: Generates revenue through interest on consumer loans like BNPL, general purpose loans, and car finance and merchant working capital loans. These loans are highly profitable because they are funded primarily by Kaspi’s deposit accounts.

How Kaspi Protects Value

Payments Network: Instead of relying on Visa or Mastercard, Kaspi built its own closed loop network. This cuts off third parties, lowers Kaspi’s transaction processing costs, and keeps users entirely within its ecosystem. By 2023, Kaspi’s network accounted for 78% of all payment network transactions in Kazakhstan.

Network Effects and Engagement: The Super App model creates a cycle: more services lead to high engagement, which lead to 77 transactions per month per active consumer by the end of 2025. Because consumers use Kaspi for everything, merchants must be on Kaspi to reach them and because all the merchants are there, consumers have no reason to leave.

Data and AI: Kaspi’s systems analyze over 1.6 million user behavior signals per minute. This unmatched data allows their AI to personalize the shopping experience, optimize advertising, and make highly accurate credit decisions for 99.9% of loans in under six seconds, keeping defaults remarkably low.

Why People Use Kaspi Over the Competition

Unmatched Brand Trust: Kaspi’s obsession with customer experience has made it the undisputed #1 brand in Kazakhstan. A 2025 survey showed Kaspi had 79% top-of-mind brand awareness for payments compared to 6% for the nearest competitor and 44% for e-commerce compared to 14% for the nearest competitor.

Seamless Integration: Traditional banking is treated as an add-on by competitors, but Kaspi deeply integrates financing directly into the shopping experience. A consumer can browse for a product, select a delivery time, and seamlessly apply BNPL financing at the point of purchase without ever leaving the app.

Cost Advantages for Merchants: Kaspi Pay is cheaper and easier for merchants to adopt. Unlike traditional acquiring charges 2.5% to 3% and requires expensive POS hardware, Kaspi Pay uses simple QR codes and charges 0.95%.

What Could Destroy Kaspi

Regulatory Interventions and Loss of Monopoly: The National Bank of Kazakhstan is actively developing initiatives to increase competition.

Kaspi’s closed loop QR network has been one of its most powerful competitive advantages. By bypassing global networks like Visa and Mastercard, Kaspi’s network grew to process 78% of all payment network transactions in Kazakhstan by 2023. However, this closed loop monopoly is currently being dismantled by government regulation to foster market competition.

The Unified QR Code Mandate

In September 2025, the National Bank of Kazakhstan launched a unified QR code system. This network is designed so that consumers can scan a single merchant QR code at checkout, regardless of which bank or application they are using.

As of March 2026, 15 banks have signed participation agreements to join the unified system. While Kaspi has signed the agreement, it has strategically delayed completing its integration. Despite the delays, the requirement is enshrined in law, Kaspi must fully connect to the unified QR infrastructure by July 18, 2026.

While the new system forces Kaspi to open one side of its payment network to rival bank customers, it still allows payment processors to set their own transaction prices and maintain their own app interfaces.

How Kaspi is Responding

Expanding the Addressable Market: Kaspi has been trying to turn rival customers into revenue. By the end of 2025, Kaspi had already integrated its QR network with 7 rival local banks, a bank in Kyrgyzstan, and AliPay. This allows Kaspi merchants to easily accept payments from non Kaspi users and international tourists, which significantly expands Kaspi’s TAM.

Kaspi Alaqan: Knowing that QR codes will soon become commoditized, Kaspi is already moving toward the next generation of checkout technology. In late 2025, the company launched Kaspi Alaqan, a pay-by-palm terminal. This allows consumers to pay without a card, phone, or internet connection. By rolling these terminals out across Kazakhstan in 2026, Kaspi is attempting to recreate the exclusive hardware dominance it once had with its QR network.

More Risks

Macroeconomics: Kaspi’s Fintech engine relies on cheap deposit funding. However, inflation in Kazakhstan has forced the NBK to raise interest rates, recently hitting 18.00%. These higher rates increase Kaspi’s cost of funding, which directly compresses the profitability of its lending segment.

Execution Risk: Kaspi recently acquired the Turkish e-commerce platform Hepsiburada. Expanding into Türkiye exposes Kaspi to more foreign exchange risks, complex integration, and inflationary pressures that could drain capital and management focus away from its core business.

Verdict

Kaspi has an insane value prop for its users and the business risks don’t seem to be a big deal in my opinion. The biggest risks are simply the regulatory environment they operate in and the risks of inflation and recessions in Kazakhstan and Türkiye. The question is can the quality of the business outweigh the risks of the macro environment. In another article I will go more in depth on the business, management, and valuation. NFA.