16:37, 29 мая 2026, Bishkek - 24.kg news agency
The National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic (NBKR) has granted banking licenses to two institutions at a time — the privately owned Muras Bank and the state-owned Kylym Bank. The two lenders have become the country’s 25th and 26th banks — they are expected to launch operations in the coming weeks.
The emergence of new banks reflects the rapid expansion and transformation of Kyrgyzstan’s financial system. What once looked like isolated growth has now turned into a stable long-term trend.
Sergey Entts, the founder and chairman of the Board of Directors of Muras Bank, an international financier with business operations in Central Asia and the European Union, announced the successful completion of the licensing process. He said the bank had completed every stage required by the regulator, including capital formation, the creation of its corporate governance structure, and the recruitment of a core management team.
The bank stands ready to begin operations by offering a basic range of products for retail and corporate clients, Mr. Entts said. At the same time, he identified the expansion of investment instruments and the development of the securities market — both domestic and international — as key strategic priorities of the bank.
«Obtaining the license opens a new stage not only for Muras Bank, but also for the development of the securities market in Kyrgyzstan,» the financier noted.
Kylym Bank has become the fourth state-owned bank established by the Cabinet of Ministers of the country. The institution was initially intended to operate as the national depository, but in February 2026 the authorities decided that the bank should take on a broader role beyond settlement and clearing operations, securities custody, accounting, and numbering-agent services. In its first stage of capitalization, Kylym Bank plans to raise 1 billion soms by issuing 1 million ordinary registered shares with a face value of 1,000 soms apiece.
The National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic (NBKR) reported that banking sector assets totaled 1.21 trillion soms by the end of 2025, thus marking a 12.2 percent increase. According to NBKR Deputy Chairman Azat Kozubekov, the deposit base rose 46.2 percent over the year to 865.9 billion soms, while the banking sector’s loan portfolio expanded by 48.8 percent to 507 billion soms.
This imbalance in growth dynamics — with lending and deposits expanding faster than total assets — shows that banks have started using resources more aggressively, increasing lending activity and attracting more capital while strengthening financial intermediation across the economy.
At the same time, rapid expansion inevitably creates risks. Rapid growth often leads to overheating, from declining loan quality to the emergence of weaker market participants.
The regulator has already responded by tightening the rules. The NBKR has proposed raising the minimum capital requirement for new banks to 5 billion soms. In practice, the regulator wants to introduce a stricter entry threshold and shift the sector toward more sustainable business models.
The banking sector momentum directly reflects broader macroeconomic trends. In 2025, Kyrgyzstan’s economy posted strong growth, with GDP rising by 11.1 percent to 1.976 trillion soms. According to the International Monetary Fund, the country ranked among the world’s fastest-growing economies in terms of real GDP growth.
The structure of growth is crucial here. Economy expands primarily through services, construction, and trade — the sectors that generate stable domestic turnover and create constant demand for financing.
This pattern changes the role of the banking system — it starts growing not only in terms of size, but also in terms of its functions. Banks move beyond basic operations and increasingly provide more sophisticated financial solutions.
As economy expands, demand for new financial instruments continues to grow. Rising domestic consumption and investment activity already fuel the development of investment products, causing a capital market to emerge gradually.
At the same time, the global financial environment remains volatile, while cross-border capital flows become more selective. Under these conditions, domestic financial infrastructure has taken on greater importance.
Banks no longer serve merely as intermediaries. They evolve to become key pillars of economic resilience, helping the economy adapt to changing conditions.
From an investor’s perspective, Kyrgyzstan’s financial market still offers a relatively limited range of instruments. They are mainly bank deposits, lending products, and a narrow segment of securities transactions.
At the same time, activity in the securities market has clearly accelerated. According to CEIC data, its capitalization now stands at approximately $2.4–2.6 billion, placing it among smaller emerging markets. In 2025, trading volume on the Kyrgyz Stock Exchange totaled around 219 billion soms, almost twice as much as the previous year.
The structure of such growth remains especially important. Primary placements accounted for most of the turnover at 209.9 billion soms, while the secondary market remained relatively illiquid at around 9.6 billion soms. In simple terms, new financial instruments continue entering the market, but investors still have limited opportunities to move in and out of positions freely.
This gap now represents the next major growth opportunity. The economy and the banking sector already generate strong demand, as seen in the rapid growth of lending and deposits. The capital market, however, still struggles to keep pace.
In more advanced Asian financial systems, rapid banking-sector growth usually coincides with the expansion of capital markets — from bonds and investment funds to broader access to international platforms. Kyrgyzstan remains at an earlier stage of that process. The central question now is not whether the country can compete with larger Asian markets, but how quickly it can offer investors a broader and more liquid range of financial instruments. The answer depends not only on domestic developments, but also on how successfully Kyrgyzstan integrates into regional capital flows.
Against this backdrop, Kyrgyzstan has started taking on a larger role within the regional financial system.
Stronger economic ties across Central Asia and rising domestic demand continue to create a denser network of financial flows throughout the region, which investors increasingly view as an emerging economic cluster.
Within this framework, Kyrgyzstan’s banking sector has begun serving a broader purpose — not only supporting the domestic economy, but also facilitating investment activity and capital movement across the wider region.
Notably, new market participants already include investment services in their long-term business models. Sergey Entts, chairman of the Board of Directors of Muras Bank, has repeatedly stressed the need to expand investment instruments and develop the securities market in order to make it more accessible to investors.
As a result, Kyrgyzstan’s banking sector has entered a stage where success depends less on scale alone and more on the ability to manage increasingly sophisticated financial flows — both inside the country and across the wider regional economy.