Kaspi in Kazakhstan: why the checkout needs more than cards

A merchant that launches in Kazakhstan with a Visa and Mastercard card form can see a familiar pattern: traffic arrives, shoppers reach the payment step, and a large share leave without trying a card. Many of them were never going to type a card number. In Kazakhstan, the natural way to pay is to open the Kaspi.kz app, scan or confirm, and go back to the shop.

This article explains what Kaspi.kz is, what the national statistics say about cards and QR payments, how a foreign merchant can accept Kaspi, how instalments fit in, how refunds work, and the mistakes to avoid. For the method itself, see our Kaspi page; for VAT, consumer law and the wider market, the Kazakhstan guide.

What is Kaspi.kz, and why does it shape online payments?

Kaspi.kz runs what it calls a two-sided super app model: the Kaspi.kz Super App for consumers and the Kaspi Pay Super App for merchants. Through them, consumers and merchants reach its payments, marketplace and financing platforms. For a shopper, that means one app holds the bank account, the card, bill payments, transfers, a marketplace and consumer credit.

The scale is unusual for a single company. According to its results for 2025, Kaspi’s payments platform processed KZT 44.2 trillion across 6.7 billion transactions, and consumers made 77 transactions a month on average. Kaspi QR and card transactions were 69% of that payment value. Its investor pages put the second quarter of 2026 at KZT 12.7 trillion of payment value, 1.9 billion transactions and 14.8 million active payment consumers.

Online shopping runs through the same app. Kaspi reports 7.4 million e-commerce consumers in 2025, each making 24.8 purchases on average, and e-commerce purchases up 83% on 2024. For many Kazakh shoppers, paying for something online already means confirming it in Kaspi.

What do the national statistics say about cards and QR?

The National Bank of Kazakhstan’s card statistics show why a card form is not enough on its own. On 1 August 2026 there were 84.0 million payment cards in circulation, issued by 18 banks and Kazpost. The split by system matters:

Card system	Cards in circulation, 1 August 2026	Share
Visa	40.7 million	48%
Local system (Kaspi.kz)	28.4 million	34%
Mastercard	14.1 million	17%
UnionPay	0.7 million	1%
Total	84.0 million	100%

About a third of the country’s cards run on the local system, which the National Bank lists under Kaspi.kz. A checkout connected only to Visa and Mastercard acquiring should not expect to reach those cards through its card form; the dependable way to reach their holders is Kaspi’s own payment flow.

The phone is where payments happen. The same statistics show that in July 2026, internet and mobile banking carried 77.6% of non-cash card transactions by number and 89.6% by value. From January to July 2026, Kazakh consumers made 2.34 billion QR-code payments, worth about KZT 11.8 trillion. QR is not a niche method in Kazakhstan; it is one of the main ways people pay, so a QR code at an online checkout needs little explanation.

How does a foreign merchant accept Kaspi?

For a merchant outside Kazakhstan, the practical route is a payment provider that holds a Kaspi connection. The provider presents the Kaspi flow, receives the result and settles to the merchant under its own agreement.

Antom’s documentation is a useful example of what such a connection looks like:

• Flow by device. On desktop, the shopper sees a QR code and scans it in the Kaspi.kz app. In a mobile app or mobile browser, the shopper is sent to the Kaspi.kz app to confirm, and prompted to install it if it is missing.
• Currency and limits. Processing is in KZT, from KZT 0.01 up to KZT 1,000,000 per payment.
• Timeout. The default timeout is 10 minutes, after which the shopper needs a new code.
• Merchant location. Merchant entities can be in Singapore, Hong Kong, the EEA, the UK or the US; the buyer must be in Kazakhstan.
• Integration. For one-time payments, only an API integration is listed, not a hosted page or payment links.
• Result. The payment result is returned in real time.

Each provider sets its own terms, so the questions to ask are the same ones you would ask in any market: settlement currency and FX rate, settlement timing, limits, refund support and how statuses are reported. Our article on how many PSPs you need per market explains how to decide whether Kaspi needs one provider or two.

How do instalments fit in?

Mostly inside Kaspi’s own app. Kaspi describes its financing platform as built around product selection: the shopper chooses a product, then finances it through the Kaspi.kz app, with a credit decision made in real time, usually within seconds. Buy now, pay later loans were 41% of the KZT 11.7 trillion of financing Kaspi originated in 2025, its largest financing product.

For a foreign merchant, the question is what its provider’s Kaspi connection supports. The gateway documentation we reviewed describes a payment confirmed from the shopper’s Kaspi account, with no instalment option. If instalments matter for your basket sizes, ask the provider directly, and do not promise them on product pages until you have seen them work at your checkout.

How do refunds and disputes work?

Refunds go back through the provider that took the payment. Antom lists full and partial refunds for Kaspi, with a refund period of 365 days. Chargebacks and disputes are marked as not supported, so there is no card-style chargeback process.

That changes the operational picture in three ways:

1. No chargeback protection for the merchant and no chargeback route for the shopper. Complaints are resolved between the shopper, the merchant and the provider, so customer service owns the outcome.
2. Order records carry more weight. Delivery confirmations, digital access logs and clear product descriptions are the evidence if a shopper complains to the provider or to Kaspi.
3. Refunds should use the original route. A refund through the provider returns money through Kaspi. Paying the shopper back by another method creates a reconciliation gap and a duplicate if the shopper also asks Kaspi.

What should a Kazakh checkout look like?

Kaspi first, cards second, and both in KZT. The National Bank’s figures show that 81.6% of cards in circulation are debit cards, so most card payments draw on the shopper’s own balance rather than on credit. A practical order for the payment step is:

1. Kaspi, shown first to shoppers in Kazakhstan, with QR on desktop and the app redirect on mobile.
2. A card form for Visa and Mastercard, with 3D Secure, for shoppers who prefer a card or bank outside the Kaspi ecosystem.
3. Saved cards for returning customers, so repeat purchases skip the card form.

Prices should be shown and charged in KZT. A shopper who sees a foreign currency at checkout has to guess the final amount, and the conversion happens at a rate the merchant does not control. Keep the order in a pending state while the shopper confirms in the app, and release it only on the final status.

Worked example: what does adding Kaspi change?

Example figures, for illustration only.

An online fashion retailer selling into Kazakhstan sees 10,000 shoppers a month reach its payment step, with a card form as the only option. 4,000 of them try a card, and 3,000 are approved.

Setup	Shoppers trying to pay	Approved or confirmed	Orders
Card form only	4,000 card attempts	75%	3,000
Card form plus Kaspi	3,000 card attempts and 4,500 Kaspi attempts	75% of cards, 85% of Kaspi	2,250 + 3,825 = 6,075

The invented numbers assume that some shoppers who used a card before now choose Kaspi, and that many who left before now try Kaspi. The size of the change depends on your audience. The direction is the point: in a market where a third of cards and most daily payments run through one app, a card-only checkout tests only part of the demand.

What are the common mistakes with Kaspi?

• Launching card-only. The Kaspi.kz local card system and Kaspi QR are invisible to a Visa and Mastercard card form.
• One flow for every device. A QR code on a phone screen is hard to scan; mobile shoppers need the app redirect.
• Ignoring the timeout. A 10-minute code expires while the shopper is distracted; let them generate a new one without restarting the order.
• Fulfilling on the redirect. Wait for the final status from the provider, ideally by webhook.
• Showing Kaspi to everyone. Shoppers outside Kazakhstan cannot use it; show it by country and currency.
• Assuming instalments are included. Check what your provider’s connection supports.
• No payout plan. A Kaspi pay-in does not give you a way to pay sellers or customers in Kazakhstan; plan that route separately.

How does Omno handle Kaspi?

Omno can present Kaspi in the hosted checkout with the right flow per device, alongside a card form for Visa and Mastercard. Eligibility rules can show Kaspi only to customers in Kazakhstan paying in KZT, and routing rules choose the provider: if a provider is unavailable or rejects the request, the payment moves to the next provider in the rule until one accepts. Merchants with their own checkout can put Kaspi on their own button with a Direct Link, which splits payments between providers by share or priority. The final status arrives by webhook. The hosted checkout page describes the flow.