# Freedom Finance Kazakhstan — personal account > Personal account at Freedom Bank Kazakhstan, part of NASDAQ-listed Freedom Holding Corp: who it suits, onboarding nuances and the Kazakhstan angle for private clients. Author: Олег Рябцев — партнёр, Family Office (https://wiki.private.law/authors/ryabtsev) Last modified: 2026-06-04T06:11:00.000Z Canonical: https://wiki.private.law/en/freedom-finance Topics: banking Jurisdictions: kazakhstan, russia Functional tags: personal-banking, accepts-russian-clients Semantic tags: personal-banking, accepts-russian-clients Article type: child --- --- ## Concept Freedom Bank Kazakhstan (legally Freedom Bank Kazakhstan JSC, formerly Bank Kassa Nova) is the retail-banking arm of Freedom Holding Corp, a NASDAQ-listed group (ticker FRHC) assembled by Timur Turlov. For the year to March 2025 the holding reported roughly $2.05 billion in revenue and about $9.9 billion in total assets, operating across some twenty countries. Inside the group the bank sits next to the Freedom Broker investment business, an insurer and a telecom arm. Its Kazakhstani customer base jumped from about 0.9 million to roughly 2.5 million in the single year to March 2025. That figure tells you most of what matters: a fast-scaling universal bank for a mass and affluent market, rather than a discreet [private bank](https://wiki.private.law/en/private-banking) built around a few dozen families. > 🍓 Freedom Bank Kazakhstan is a licensed Kazakhstani bank supervised by the ARDFM, and deposits are covered by the Kazakhstan Deposit Insurance Fund. Cover is tiered: up to KZT 20 million for tenge savings deposits, up to KZT 10 million for tenge current accounts and cards, and up to KZT 5 million for foreign-currency deposits, within a single cumulative ceiling of KZT 20 million per depositor per bank. ## Regulation - **National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK)** — central bank, monetary policy; - ARDFM (Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market) — banking regulator; - Kazakhstan Deposit Insurance Fund — tiered guarantee: KZT 20M for tenge savings deposits, KZT 10M for tenge accounts and cards, KZT 5M for foreign-currency deposits, capped at KZT 20M per depositor per bank; - Freedom Holding parent listed on NASDAQ — subject to SEC reporting and audit. ## For Whom - residents of Kazakhstan for retail banking; - international clients with resident connection to Kazakhstan through AIFC or other routes; - Russian-speaking clients with a need to accumulate KZT/RUB/USD outside the Western banking system; - investors in Freedom Holding products through a banking relationship. ## What it offers ### Retail - current and savings accounts in KZT, USD, EUR, RUB; - Visa/Mastercard debit cards; - mortgage lending (for residents); - consumer loans; - mobile banking with integrated brokerage access to Freedom Broker. ### Brokerage Access via Freedom Broker - access to US/Russian/Kazakhstan stocks through integrated brokerage account; - IPO allocation for US listings (a well-known feature of Freedom Holding); - ETFs and mutual funds. ### Derivative Products - structured products through the Freedom Holding group; - US/international equity exposure. ## Key considerations - NASDAQ-listed parent: provides some transparency and SEC reporting, but this does not make the bank "Western"—it remains a Kazakhstani institution with a local regulatory framework; - Sanctions exposure and tightened KYC: Freedom divested its Russian business in early 2023 (sold to Maxim Povalishin and rebranded Tsifra) and Turlov renounced his Russian citizenship, yet the group still draws scrutiny, including US SEC and DOJ inquiries opened after a 2023 short-seller report, so the bank applies enhanced due diligence to clients with Russian links or mixed residency; - Currency volatility: KZT is volatile; FX operations and hedging are critical; - Not a private bank: a universal bank, not a specialized wealth manager. ## Where Freedom Bank Kazakhstan is appropriate - everyday banking, salary, cards and KZT settlement for anyone resident in or relocating to Kazakhstan; - international clients with an AIFC corporate structure and a need for a banking partner; - Russian-speaking clients with transparent source of wealth and Kazakh resident status; - consolidating banking and brokerage in one app for existing Freedom Broker clients; ## Where not suitable - UHNW pure-play wealth management — Switzerland/Singapore/HK private banks are more specialized; - large capital in KZT without FX exposure considerations; - clients with risk-sensitive UBO without residency in Kazakhstan; - primary long-term wealth storage without diversification. ## From Kassa Nova to a NASDAQ group The bank entered the Freedom orbit as a small Kazakhstani lender, Bank Kassa Nova, and was rebuilt into the retail face of a US-listed holding. That lineage explains its character. Freedom grew first as a brokerage serving retail investors across the former Soviet space, then wrapped banking, insurance and telecom around it and listed in the United States rather than staying a purely local institution. Kazakhstan, in parallel, became one of the main [relocation and banking bases for clients leaving Russia](https://wiki.private.law/en/relocation-from-russia) after 2022, which fed the bank's extraordinary customer growth. The practical reading for a private client is mixed. You get a digitally competent bank, well-capitalised by local standards and tied to a parent that files with the SEC. You also get an institution still maturing its compliance culture (net income fell to $84.5 million in fiscal 2025 from $375 million a year earlier, even as revenue rose), operating in a currency and legal setting unfamiliar to most Western advisers. ## The NASDAQ parent and the compliance question A US listing imposes real discipline: audited accounts, quarterly filings and the scrutiny of public markets. It does not turn a Kazakhstani bank into a Western private bank, and it has not kept the group out of controversy. An August 2023 short-seller report alleged inflated revenue and [sanctions](https://wiki.private.law/en/ofac) and KYC failures; Freedom rejected the claims and commissioned an external review that found them unsupported. US authorities took interest regardless, and SEC and DOJ inquiries (reportedly centred on the founder, offshore affiliates and access to US IPOs for a largely Russian-speaking client base) remained open as of early 2025, with no charges filed. > 💡 A US listing means the parent reports to the SEC. It does not place Freedom Bank Kazakhstan under Western supervision: the bank answers to Kazakhstani regulators, so treat the listed parent as a reporting backstop, not a substitute for your own due diligence. ## Reporting, currency and the tenge Kazakhstan participates in the OECD [Common Reporting Standard](https://wiki.private.law/en/crs-overview), so a balance at Freedom Bank is reported automatically to the account holder's country of tax residence. Clients who remain Russian currency residents also face [foreign-account notification and reporting](https://wiki.private.law/en/russia-foreign-account-reporting) duties at home. This does not argue against the bank. It does mean planning the account inside a wider reporting picture and treating the balance as fully visible from day one. The second reality is the tenge. The currency is volatile against the dollar and euro, and conversion spreads and timing matter for anyone holding meaningful balances. Multi-currency discipline, and for cross-border flows an [AIFC account routed through the Astana International Financial Centre](https://wiki.private.law/en/collect-pay-kazakhstan-route), usually does more for a client than chasing a marginally better local rate. ## Where it fits in a private-wealth setup Read against a structured [banking map](https://wiki.private.law/en/five-flags), Freedom Bank Kazakhstan is a regional operating account, not a custody-and-advice relationship. It works as a banking flag for someone already tied to Kazakhstan (through residence, an AIFC company or Freedom's own investment products) and gives Russian-speaking clients a transparent, English-workable institution close to home. It does not replace a Geneva or Singapore [private bank](https://wiki.private.law/en/private-banking) for long-horizon custody, nor a dedicated [brokerage](https://wiki.private.law/en/investment-platforms) for serious portfolio work. > 🍓 Used well, Freedom Bank Kazakhstan is a competent regional account tied to a listed group: a sound choice for a Kazakhstan-linked client who values proximity and disclosure. As a primary wealth vault it asks you to accept tenge risk, a compliance culture still maturing and an open US investigation, and for that role a Swiss or Singapore relationship remains the stronger option. **Related links: **[Private Banking](https://wiki.private.law/en/private-banking) · [The Five Flags Theory](https://wiki.private.law/en/five-flags) · [AIFC Kazakhstan cross-border account](https://wiki.private.law/en/collect-pay-kazakhstan-route) · [Relocation from Russia](https://wiki.private.law/en/relocation-from-russia) · [CRS: automatic exchange](https://wiki.private.law/en/crs-overview) · [Russian foreign-account reporting](https://wiki.private.law/en/russia-foreign-account-reporting) · [Freedom Holding FY2025 results](https://ir.freedomholdingcorp.com/press-releases/detail/73/freedom-holding-corp-reports-fiscal-year-2025-financial) · [Kazakhstan deposit guarantee (egov.kz)](https://egov.kz/cms/en/articles/economics/deposit_guarantee_system)