The chairman of Kazakhstan’s National Payment Corporation (NPC) has conducted the first transaction using the country’s new central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital tenge. During a recent speech, he made a payment using a debit card linked to the CBDC account. The digital tenge has been officially launched on the retail market, with plans for further development in the coming years. Kazakhstan has collaborated with Visa, Mastercard, and local banks to integrate the CBDC into plastic cards, allowing users to make payments using digital tenge through various platforms such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. The digital tenge also has programmable capabilities, making it suitable for smart contracts, innovative financial services, and digital asset transactions. The development of the CBDC began in February 2023, and the NPC aims to adopt the digital tenge for cross-border trade by 2025. Alongside the CBDC rollout, Kazakh authorities have increased their scrutiny of the crypto market, imposing stricter regulations on international crypto exchanges and introducing new tax rates for crypto mining activities.

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Information	Details
Geography	Asia
Countries	🇰🇿
Sentiment	neutral
Relevance Score	1
People	Binur Zhalenov
Companies	Apple Pay, Mastercard, National Payment Corporation (NPC), Visa, Samsung Pay
Currencies	Thena, Bankless DAO
Securities	None