Al Hilal and Zaman-Bank are the two Islamic banks operating in Kazakhstan today. The latter received an official permit from the National Bank for voluntary reorganization into the Islamic Bank in 2016. In August 2017 the bank obtained its license and was renamed the JSC Islamic Bank “Zaman Bank”.
In a year, the total share of Islamic banks in the assets of Kazakhstan’s second-tier banks has increased from 0.16% to 0.23%. In late January, this indicator was 32.6 billion tenge for Al Hilal Bank (+39.6% YoY) and 24.6 billion tenge for Zaman Bank (+67.4%). The total volume of own capitals also showed a positive dynamics within a year: by 8.4% (16.1 billion tenge) for Al Hilal Bank and by 7.9% (12.7 billion tenge) for Zaman-Bank.
The activity of Al-Hilal and Zaman banks must comply with the principles and norms of sharia law. The banks are prohibited to lend and accept money at interest. In the past year, both banks observed growth of their loan and deposit portfolios. Thus, Al Hilal Bank’s loan portfolio rose by 37.9% and comprised 8.8 billion tenge, while Zaman-Bank’s loan portfolio increased to 13.8 billion tenge (+7.3%). Deposits at Al Hilal Bank increased 2.4-fold and made 14.4 billion tenge. The volume of deposits at Zaman-Bank increased 2.3-fold and reached 652 million tenge.
The corporate deposits prevail in deposit portfolios of the two banks: 94% at Al Hilal Bank and 98.5% at Zaman-Bank. (Kazinform/Business World Magazine)