The bank is shifting its focus from distributing plastic cards to developing comprehensive digital solutions
By mid-2026, Freedom Bank’s customer base had surpassed 5.4 million people, more than doubling over 15 months. This growth comes amid an expanding retail product line and the development of Freedom SuperApp, which brings together banking products with payments, investments, and everyday services.
We examined Freedom Bank’s key products and their role within the ecosystem to understand what solutions the bank offers retail customers and what is driving its audience growth.
Customer base growth
By the end of fiscal year 2026, the customer base of Freedom Bank, part of the Kazakhstani fintech group Freedom Holding Corp., had nearly doubled. Whereas it
stood at 2.52 million on March 31, 2025, a year later it reached 5.03 million people. A quarter later (as of June 30, 2026), the figure grew by another 8.38%, to 5.45 million people.
The data indicate that the bank’s customer base is growing steadily. Strong momentum like this is usually driven by one, or both, of two trends:
- acquiring new customers;
- retaining customers who have banked with it for a long time.
Freedom — an everyday bank
Retail products are one reason for the customer base growth. Freedom, for instance, is expanding its offering in the payment card segment. The bank is shifting its focus from distributing plastic cards to developing comprehensive digital solutions. Freedom Bank’s current lineup includes
multicurrency, social, deposit-linked, investment, student, children’s, and many other types of cards. On some cards, the maximum cashback reaches 25%.
Freedom Bank’s flagship product is SuperCard, issued in a variety of designs (from Rick and Morty characters to portraits of Kazakhstani stars such as Dimash Kudaibergen and Nurdaulet Bektursyn). It’s a multicurrency card that opens with two currency accounts by default: in tenge or US dollars. If
desired, clients can also independently open accounts and transact in Russian rubles, euros, Chinese yuan, Turkish lira, and UAE dirhams through the Freedom SuperApp. SuperCard is a hybrid of a debit card and a deposit account that lets users earn on their account balances, receive cashback on
purchases and invest it on the stock market, and transfer and withdraw funds from ATMs in different currencies free of charge.
Freedom Bank offers retail customers four core lending products: a digital mortgage, a digital auto loan, a loan for immediate needs, and a cash loan. Applications for these can be submitted through Freedom SuperApp, and a number of products, including the mortgage and auto loan, feature a fully
digital application process.
In April, Freedom Bank was the first commercial lending institution in the country to announce the launch of a new hybrid loan-and-deposit product — a mortgage under the housing construction savings (ZhSS) system, at rates of 5–10%.
Freedom Bank plans to develop joint payment solutions with the Weixin Pay ecosystem (known as WeChat Pay). The companies will handle cross-border payments and direct money transfers between Kazakhstan and China, and will also integrate QR payments. In addition, Freedom has signed agreements with
Ant International, one of the world’s largest fintech companies, to build a payment gateway between Kazakhstan and China.
Freedom Bank operates its own certification authority, which allows it to open accounts for new users and issue cards entirely remotely. For 2024, the bank was recognized as a leader in strategic partnership with Mastercard. The international payment network highlighted Freedom Bank’s issuance of
its first million Mastercard cards and noted its contribution to developing Kazakhstan’s payment infrastructure. In 2025, the bank also overtook its competitors in the number of Visa card transactions.
The role of SuperApp and key B2C products
Freedom SuperApp is a mobile application built around Freedom Bank as its core. It functions as a payment gateway and seamlessly connects all of the holding’s digital services for the user. Freedom SuperApp currently has nearly 6 million users. The company plans to reach 8 million by the end of
this year, and 12–15 million users within the next few years.
The number of services included in Freedom SuperApp keeps growing. In addition to the bank, the app currently includes the investment company Freedom Broker, the travel service Freedom Travel, the insurance companies Freedom Life and Freedom Insurance, the telecom operator Freedom Telecom, the
delivery service Arbuz.kz, the ticketing aggregator Freedom Ticketon, and the streaming platform Freedom Media. In addition, through the Freedom SuperApp, Freedom Bank’s clients can settle car-accident claims, search for staff, and buy electronic gadgets.
Since summer, Freedom Bank has given its clients access to transfers between deposits, a “My Bills” section that collects all bills due, a choice of digital card designs, and BilimClass school homework assignments. Recently, users have also been able to post about their purchases and earn points
for doing so — points that can later be converted into cashback — within the Freedom Lenta social network.
Freedom Bank’s international ratings
Freedom Bank is one of five players in Kazakhstan’s banking market to hold a credit rating from S&P, the largest international rating agency. In June 2026, the agency raised the long-term ratings of several companies within Freedom Holding Corp., including its banking subsidiary, from “B+” to
“BB-”. Over the several years the bank has operated in Kazakhstan, S&P has raised its rating three times.
Freedom Bank’s retail loan portfolio is expanding thanks to its focus on mortgages and auto loans, according to a report by Moody’s, the international rating agency that assigned the bank a long-term deposit rating of Ba3 with a stable outlook in March 2026. The agency’s analysts noted Freedom
Bank’s resilient lending model amid moderate risk: non-performing loans made up just 2.9% of the loan portfolio as of September 2025, with reserve coverage of 116%.
Moody’s noted that in 2025 Freedom Bank significantly outpaced its competitors in Kazakhstan in the pace of retail funding growth. In the first nine months of 2025, the bank’s deposit base grew by 24%, and by the end of the year, by 51%.
Freedom Bank’s financial performance
The banking segment’s share of the holding’s total revenue remains consistently high. Total revenue across the entire group of companies came to $732.5 million in the first quarter of 2027, of which the bank accounted for $225.2 million, or 30.74% (versus 27.9% a year earlier). Revenue grew 54%
year over year.
According to JSC Freedom Bank Kazakhstan’s 2025 financial statements, the bank’s assets grew 1.4% year over year, to 2.58 trillion tenge ($5.13 billion at the National Bank of Kazakhstan’s official exchange rate as of December 31, 2025), while its loan portfolio grew 29.9%, to 995.7 billion tenge
($1.98 billion). The volume of investment securities on the balance sheet increased 2.4-fold, to 88.7 billion tenge ($176.5 million), and cash and cash equivalents grew 46.5%, to 373.1 billion tenge ($742.4 million).
photo by depositphotos
