In recent years, banking apps in Kazakhstan have evolved into full-fledged analytical centers. Automatic expense categorization, spending charts, and monthly reports have become the standard for Kaspi, Freedom, Halyk, and BCC. This allows users to see their spending structure without needing to collect paper receipts. However, behind the beautiful charts lies a gap between "viewing statistics" and real budget management.
What is this research about?
In this study, we conducted in-depth interviews with Kazakhstanis to explore their experience interacting with banking ecosystems.
In this material, we break down financial analytics services:
- How do different segments analyze their spending and plan major purchases?
- What tools do they use to avoid going into the "red"?
- What prevents banking analytics from becoming a full-fledged financial advisor?
Below is a detailed breakdown of five archetypes defining the culture of financial control in Kazakhstan.
😐 Normies
For this segment, expense tracking is more of a curious extra feature than a vital necessity. They use analytics situationally, when the question "where did it all go?" arises at the end of the month, but rarely do it systematically.
Financial planning and tracking (Score: 6/10)
Ecosystems (especially Kaspi and Halyk) adequately cover their basic request for spending structure. They like that everything is already sorted into "Entertainment," "Groceries," or "Utilities" folders.
Quote: "In Kaspi, everything is structured, it's much easier to search there... I glance at the report for various entertainment expenses."
Behavior: They usually check reports after receiving their salary or when reviewing expenses in the evening. They might keep elementary records in phone notes or simply rely on intuition, believing that bank charts are enough for general peace of mind.
Blockers and barriers
- Categorical inertia: The main unique blocker is when a user sees a category error (for example, lunch at a cafe is counted as "Groceries") but lacks the motivation or a convenient way to fix it. As a result, the analytics begin to "lie," and the normie stops looking at it.
- Lack of incentive to plan: Built-in services show "what happened" but do not prompt action. Normies lack a simple gamification element or "tips of the day" to start actually saving money rather than just looking at charts.
- Data overload: If a report looks too complex or requires long scrolling, the normie chooses the easiest path—closing the analytics and checking the account balance.
🤑 Pragmatists
For them, tracking is a tool for calibrating benefits. They look at reports not to "save money," but to understand how effectively their cashback and bonus strategy worked.
Financial planning and tracking (Score: 6/10)
Ecosystems (Freedom, Kaspi) give them a good baseline for optimization, but pragmatists lack tools for automatic benefit comparison.
Quote: "I don't write down expenses, I just set a sum for myself that cannot be exceeded—for example, 100k for the month—and track it right in the Freedom app."
Behavior: They actively set monthly limits manually. They constantly compare prices (for tickets, electronics) across platforms, using installment plans as financial leverage. They need analytics to confirm the correctness of their "bonus hunting."
Blockers and barriers
- "Interbank blindness": The main unique blocker is the inability to see the overall cashback picture across all cards from different banks in a single window. The pragmatist is forced to manually compare where they earned more.
- Lack of a "future benefit calculator": They lack a service that would predict based on their past spending: "If you switch to card X next month, you will earn 5,000 tenge more in bonuses."
- Technological fragility: A conscious shift to external apps (ZenMoney, Google Sheets) because bank auto-imports often "break" or pull data incorrectly.
🥸 Olds
This segment prefers physical control or the simplest digital forms like notes. Banking analytics seem too abstract and complex for real life to them.
Financial planning and tracking (Score: 3/10)
Minimal interaction with the service. Any complex report menu triggers a desire to return to manual tracking or abandon it altogether.
Quote: "I don't keep any records, although I know everything is recorded in Kaspi. I've only looked in there a couple of times. I just do the tracking in notes."
Behavior: If they do plan a budget, it's the old proven way: "part for installments, part for a deposit, the rest for living." They perceive bank reports as an information-overloaded accounting document that is scary to get tangled up in.
Blockers and barriers
- Fear of losing control: A preference to keep the budget "in their head" or in paper notes due to the belief that automation and AI deprive a person of personal control over money.
- Visual noise of numbers: An excess of charts, percentages, and categories is frightening. Olds lack one simple screen answering two questions: "How much is left?" and "How many days will this last?".
- Difficulty entering cash: Since olds still frequently use cash, the lack of a convenient way to quickly add a cash expense to the overall bank report makes all digital analytics meaningless.
🧐 Financially Literate
The most active and demanding segment. For them, banking analytics are raw materials for their own deep calculations. They value detailing but are always looking for ways to go beyond a single app.
Financial planning and tracking (Score: 8/10)
They are "heavy" users of BCC, Freedom, and Kaspi. They appreciate the integration of investments right into the banking interface, but still build out their tracking system with external tools.
Quote: "BCC has convenient brokerage investing—essentially, you just make transfers between your accounts. I do the tracking in notes or ZenMoney for greater control."
Behavior: They analyze statements in detail, transfer data to Google Sheets, set strict limits, and track capital dynamics. They use the bank as a data source for their "financial hub."
Blockers and barriers
- Cluttering with "dirty" data: A unique blocker is internal transfers between one's own accounts or debt repayments from friends, which the bank counts as "income" or "expenses." This ruins the statistics and forces them to spend time on manual cleaning.
- Lack of scenario planning: Seeing the past is not enough for them; they need the future. A blocker is the lack of modeling tools: "what will happen to my capital in 5 years given current inflation and deposit rates?".
- Closed data: The inability to automatically import data from one bank to another via API (Open Banking) forces them to manually export reports, which lowers the service's rating.
😡 The Burned
A segment whose planning strategy is built on distrust and diversification. They deliberately do not keep records in one place so as not to give the bank too much information about themselves and not risk all their money at once.
Financial planning and tracking (Score: 3/10)
Weak use of the service due to an emotional barrier. Any deep analysis of their spending by the bank is perceived as surveillance that could lead to new blocks.
Quote: "Due to an error by Freedom's processing center, I was banned from leaving the country. Now I distribute my savings across different banks for security reasons."
Behavior: They distribute money across several banks (Halyk, Kaspi, RBK), keep records as covertly as possible (in their head or on paper). They avoid auto-payments and automatic limits, preferring to control every transaction manually.
Blockers and barriers
- Fear of "social scoring": A unique blocker is the fear that if the bank sees their real spending level or habits through analytics, it could affect their credit score or lead to account blocking.
- Fragmentation as a barrier: Because their money is smeared across 3–4 banks, the built-in analytics of any one of them shows only a fragment of the picture, making it useless for overall planning.
- Psychological block on automation: Complete avoidance of any automatic tracking and planning systems after past critical bank errors in processing or accruals.
Final Summary
Banking ecosystems in Kazakhstan have created a baseline for recording expenses, but have not yet become full-fledged tools for planning. The main barrier for all segments is the lack of unified analytics across all of a user's accounts in different banks.
The ecosystem that first offers cross-bank data aggregation and moves from a dry statement of facts ("you spent this much") to smart forecasting and protecting user interests—whether that's automatically cleaning transfers of excess data or helping achieve long-term financial goals—will win.
