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Kazakhstan to Shut Private Exchange Bureaus
Posted on March 11th, 2009 Comments welcome Share/Save PrintThe National Bank of Kazakhstan is planning to amend existing legislation in order to cancel the licenses of private, non-bank currency exchange bureaus trading in foreign currencies. National Bank head Grigoriy Marchenko believes that the bureaus have been exploiting the February tenge devaluation in order to extract excess profits, and that the changes are necessary in order to stabilize the retail currency markets. Read more »
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Tenge Devaluation: One Month On
Posted on March 5th, 2009 Comments welcome Share/Save PrintOn February 4, Kazakhstan’s National Bank dramatically devalued the tenge from a corridor of 117-123 tenge/US dollar to 145-155 tenge/US dollar, citing the decline in oil price (oil comprises 60% of Kazakh exports); currency devaluations in Kazakhstan’s neighbors, particularly Russia; and the fledgling state of the domestic banking sector. The sudden devaluation was unexpected - the general sense in the financial community was that it wouldn’t happen until March or April, and even then it would be an incremental devaluation throughout 2009. Read more »
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