Why Kazakhstan’s Unified QR Payment System Isn't Fully Operational Everywhere Yet

While Kazakhstan's newly introduced unified QR payment system is gaining broad traction among the public, certain retail outlets, parking facilities, and public transit services continue to encounter operational hurdles. Binur Zhalenov, Deputy Governor of the National Bank, addressed these ongoing challenges at the Central Asia Fintech Summit 2026.

According to the central bank official, the main cause of these disruptions stems from the functional gap between dynamic codes on POS terminals and legacy static QR stickers displayed on physical surfaces. Financial institutions are currently in the process of replacing these older stickers to align with the updated system. Physically updating static codes across every commercial location requires additional time, but the National Bank expects to complete this transition phase within the next six months.

Furthermore, Zhalenov stressed a critical regulatory requirement: if an electronic payment terminal at a point of sale refuses a unified QR transaction, it constitutes a direct violation of national law. Every POS terminal is legally mandated to seamlessly process unified QR payments.

Statistical data shows that over 20 million transactions have been executed via the unified QR framework to date. Of those, 99.5 percent were processed successfully, with technical glitches accounting for only a 0.5 percent failure rate.