BCTA MEMBERSHIP STATUS
Alumni

SECTOR
Financial Services

HEADQUARTERS
Kazakhstan

REGION OF INITIATIVE
Eastern Europe & Central Asia

SDG CONTRIBUTION

RELATED NEWS

KMF, a Kazakhstan-based microfinance organization, joined Business Call to Action (BCtA) in October 2018 with a commitment to expand access to financial products and services for 40,000 new micro-, small- and agrobusiness customers across Kazakhstan by the end of 2018. KMF also commits to ensuring at least half of its new clients will be women, and will actively engage potential clients from rural areas.

KMF is a leader in the Central Asian microfinance sector and the largest microfinance institute in Kazakhstan in terms of size and outreach (54 percent of market share). It provides both individual and group solidarity loans in more than 4,000 locations across the country, with a focus on women entrepreneurs and inhabitants of remote rural areas. While traditional banks require official confirmation of an individual’s income in order to apply for a loan, KMF takes a more flexible approach based on the situation of the individual.

KMF loan officers are trained to do this analysis using a Mobile Expert app on their phones. All rules, conditions and requirements for the assessment of client's payment capacity are integrated into this mobile app, making it easy and efficient to use.

In addition to individual lending products, KMF also has a successful group lending model that is attractive to small business owners as it does not require any additional collateral other than the group guarantee. Loan amounts in group lending are increased gradually as a business grows and develops. There is mutual support in the groups, in that everyone is interested in timely repayment of loans by each member of the group.