Halyk Bank – executive interview

Halyk Bank is Kazakhstan’s leading financial services group, operating across a variety of segments, including retail, SME and corporate banking, insurance, leasing, brokerage and asset management. In this interview, Murat Koshenov, the company’s CFO and deputy CEO, discusses Halyk Bank’s position in the local banking sector and the company’s major growth drivers. He also comments on how the group is navigating the macroeconomic environment in the country, characterised by high inflation and high interest rates. He also discusses the outlook for maintaining Halyk Bank’s best-in-class operating ratios. Finally, he explains the company’s dividend policy.
Murat Koshenov has been deputy chairman of Halyk Bank’s management board since September 2014. He has also been chairman of the supervisory board of Tenge Bank since September 2019. He has worked in finance and banking since 2000. From 2000 to 2010, he first worked as head of broker-dealer operations at ABN AMRO Asset Management and then as risk manager, head of the risk management division and deputy chairman of the management board at SB ABN AMRO Bank Kazakhstan, later SB RBS (Kazakhstan). He joined Halyk Bank in January 2010 and until 2014 was chief risk officer and compliance controller. Between 2014 and 2022, as deputy CEO he was the head of corporate banking and since 2022 has been the chief financial officer of Halyk Bank. Murat Koshenov has a degree in physics from Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (1996) and an MBA from the Kazakhstan Institute of Economics, Management and Strategic Research (1998) and is FRM certified (since 2006) and a CFA charterholder (since 2003).