National Bank of Kazakhstan: tenge weakens 3% in October

Kazakhstan's tenge weakened by 3% in October, with the dollar rate reaching 453.77 tenge. The National Bank of Kazakhstan, in its monthly review, also outlined the foreign exchange operations it plans for November, Tengrinews reported. Average daily trading volume on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) fell from $474 million to $397 million, while total trading for the month reached $8.4 billion.

The regulator said about 302 billion tenge was obtained in October through operations to balance gold purchases. A similar amount in foreign currency, equivalent to 302 billion tenge, is expected to be sold in November for the same purpose. To finance government requests, the National Bank bought $910 million from the National Fund, which is to be sold on the domestic market through mirroring operations. No currency interventions were carried out in October.

The bank also bought foreign currency worth $568 million to support the currency share of pension assets, about 7% of total trading volume. On 23 October, it cut the base rate by 0.5 percentage points, from 16.25% to 15.75%. This was the fourth consecutive reduction since June 2026, when the rate stood at 18%. The bank said it will continue to maintain a flexible exchange rate regime.