The National Bank of Kazakhstan said on Monday that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Binance Investments Co. providing for the joint development of a regional settlement hub for the Binance group in Kazakhstan. The regulator said the hub would service international payments and money transfers, including settlements arising from digital asset transactions conducted by clients of the global Binance group across Central Asia, the Commonwealth of Independent States and Eastern Europe. Implementation of the project involves establishing a Binance group entity in Kazakhstan together with the supporting infrastructure, and subsequently obtaining a National Bank licence to operate as a first-category payment organisation. The National Bank said the project would allow part of the group's regional operations to be transferred to Kazakhstan and a significant portion of clients in the region to be serviced through the Kazakh jurisdiction.
The memorandum follows a cluster of agreements concluded days earlier. On 4 September, Binance announced three memoranda covering payment infrastructure, digital assets and investment instruments, signed with the National Bank, the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, and the Astana International Financial Centre. Those documents included provisions to explore the issuance of a stablecoin in Kazakhstan, to expand infrastructure for payments involving digital assets, and to refine tax and judicial approaches governing the sector. The Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development said the agreements were signed following a meeting in Astana between Deputy Prime Minister Zhaslan Madiyev and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, at which a partnership between Binance Pay and Alatau City Bank was also presented.
LICENSING PATHWAY AND REGULATORY STRUCTURE
The first-category payment organisation licence sought by the prospective Binance entity carries direct access to the National Bank's payment and financial infrastructure, allowing the holder to operate without bank intermediation and to provide a broad range of payment services to individuals and businesses. The category is a recently created classification within Kazakhstan's non-bank payment services framework. Holders may provide full payment processing services and connect digital asset transactions to traditional currency systems, but they may not accept customer deposits or extend loans, confining the permission strictly to payments activity. The National Bank said legislative changes governing digital assets, together with the introduction of this new class of financial market participant, had made the project possible.
The settlement operation would sit alongside Binance's existing footprint in the country under a separate supervisory regime. Binance already operates in Kazakhstan through Binance Kazakhstan, a digital asset platform regulated by the Astana Financial Services Authority within the Astana International Financial Centre. The proposed payments entity would instead fall under the National Bank's direct authority, creating parallel licensing tracks for the group's trading and settlement functions. Binance said the parties had prepared a roadmap covering the phased development of payment infrastructure, licensing and the launch of new products.
UNRESOLVED TERMS AND EXECUTION RISK
Neither the National Bank nor Binance has disclosed the expected transaction volume, the number of clients to be served, or the specific payment products that could be routed through Kazakhstan. No launch date has been announced, and the regulator's statement does not specify supported currencies, fee schedules or transfer processing times. The memorandum establishes intent rather than a completed arrangement: incorporation of the entity, construction of the infrastructure and the grant of the licence all remain items on the implementation plan. The signing ceremony was attended by National Bank Chairman Timur Suleimenov and Changpeng Zhao.
Execution will depend substantially on conditions outside Kazakhstan's jurisdiction. Services delivered into the targeted markets would remain subject to local rules, which differ considerably across Central Asia, the CIS and Eastern Europe, leaving open the question of how the hub would function in each country. For finance executives tracking the arrangement, the near-term markers are the incorporation of the Binance group entity, the filing and disposition of the first-category payment organisation application, and the publication of service terms that would allow the cost proposition for cross-border transfers to be assessed. Progress on the separate stablecoin discussions, which remain exploratory, would indicate whether the broader Kazakh-Binance programme advances beyond infrastructure into issuance.