Joint Stock Company Kaspi.kz is a super app that dominates daily life in Kazakhstan by combining digital payments, e-commerce, and consumer finance into a single mobile platform. The company generated $7.69 billion in revenue in 2025, representing a 44% increase over the previous year. It has successfully moved from being a local bank to becoming the primary digital infrastructure for a nation, now reaching over 21 million active consumers across its ecosystem.
The investment thesis on Kaspi.kz is that its massive network effect and 70% gross margins are being significantly undervalued by a market that views it only as a regional bank rather than a high-growth technology platform. More specifically, three things need to be true:
We think Kaspi.kz is one of the most efficient growth stories in the global fintech space, and its current valuation of about 7 times earnings is remarkably low for a business with a 41% return on capital. The combination of high growth and high profitability is rare, and the recent expansion into Türkiye provides a clear path for the next leg of growth.
What does it do?
Joint Stock Company Kaspi.kz is a growth-stage business that earns money by taking a small cut of almost every digital transaction and loan made in Kazakhstan. The company operates a super app where users pay bills, buy groceries, book travel, and manage their banking. Kaspi earns revenue through three distinct mechanisms: transaction fees from its payments network, sales commissions from its e-commerce marketplace, and interest or fees from its consumer finance (fintech) products. Because the app is so deeply embedded in daily life, Kaspi can acquire customers for its banking products for almost nothing, which is the key to its high profitability.
Where does revenue come from?
Revenue is evenly split across three high-margin platforms that reinforce each other. The Marketplace Platform earns commissions from merchants selling goods; the Payments Platform charges fees for QR-code and mobile transfers; and the Fintech Platform provides consumer loans and buy-now-pay-later services. While most of its revenue currently comes from Kazakhstan, its recent acquisition of a 65% stake in Hepsiburada means a growing portion will soon come from the Turkish e-commerce market.
Who are its customers?
Kaspi.kz serves over 21 million active consumers and a massive network of merchants who rely on the app to process sales. In Kazakhstan, the app is nearly universal, with over 14 million monthly active users in a country of about 20 million people. The business is two-sided: it provides a digital wallet and shopping platform for consumers, while giving merchants the point-of-sale tools and delivery infrastructure they need to sell online. Marketplace revenue grew 31.5% in the most recent quarter, driven by more people using the app to buy everything from electronics to daily essentials.
What gives it staying power?
Kaspi.kz has a powerful network effect: as more people use the app to pay, more merchants are forced to accept it, which makes the app even more valuable to users. Once a customer uses Kaspi for their salary, their shopping, and their social transfers, the switching costs become extremely high.
Where is it headed?
The company is making a major strategic bet on international expansion, starting with its entry into the much larger Turkish market. By acquiring Hepsiburada and a Turkish bank, management is testing whether its super app playbook can work outside its home market. If successful, this could significantly expand its addressable market and reduce its reliance on the Kazakh economy.
Revenue growth remains exceptionally high for a company of this scale, with 2025 revenue jumping 44% to $7.69 billion. This acceleration is fueled by the Marketplace segment, which is successfully capturing a larger share of total retail spending in Kazakhstan. The business is growing not just in terms of users, but in how much those users spend within the app.
Cash generation is a standout strength, with free cash flow of $491 billion KZT (roughly $1 billion USD) tracking net income closely. Unlike many Western fintech companies that burn cash to grow, Kaspi generates significant cash while scaling. Its asset-light marketplace and payments model means it does not need to build heavy physical infrastructure to increase its sales.
The balance sheet is very conservative for a financial services company, carrying a debt-to-equity ratio of only 0.15x. Because it generates so much cash from fees and commissions, it does not need to rely on heavy borrowing to fund its growth. This financial resilience allows it to fund major acquisitions like Hepsiburada and Rabobank Türkiye using its own resources.
Joint Stock Company Kaspi.kz is a financially elite business that combines high growth with some of the best profitability metrics in the global technology sector.
The marketplace business is the primary growth engine, with quarterly revenue recently growing over 31%. By adding new services like travel booking and car sales, Kaspi is increasing the number of times a user interacts with the app each month. This higher engagement drives more payments and more data for their lending decisions.
Net interest margins and credit quality in the fintech unit are the main risks if the regional economy slows. While current loan losses are stable, a sharp spike in defaults would hurt the profitability that funds the rest of the ecosystem. Investors should watch the provision for loan losses relative to the total lending volume.
The digital economy in Central Asia and Türkiye is roughly $50 billion today and is growing at more than 20% annually as cash payments move to mobile. This market is on track to exceed $120 billion by 2028 as e-commerce penetration catches up to global averages. The industry is highly attractive because the first platform to achieve scale wins a massive network effect that makes it nearly impossible for new players to enter. Kaspi.kz is the undisputed leader in this region, effectively operating the digital toll road for the entire Kazakh economy.
The competitive dynamic in Kazakhstan is rationally structured because Kaspi has already won the battle for the consumer's primary mobile screen. While barriers to entry for a new bank are low, the barriers to building a competing ecosystem of 21 million users and hundreds of thousands of merchants are extremely high. Long-term pricing power is protected by the sheer difficulty of displacing an app that handles everything from tax payments to grocery shopping.
Halyk Bank is the most significant domestic threat, using its massive legacy deposit base to fund a digital transformation. International giants like Wildberries compete on e-commerce selection, but they lack the integrated payment and government-service features that keep users locked into Kaspi. The most dangerous threat is the potential for a global platform like WeChat or a heavily subsidized regional player to enter and compete on merchant commission rates.
Kaspi.kz is holding its ground while expanding its lead through a broader range of services. Evidence of this dominance is seen in its 70% gross margins, which show no sign of pressure from competitors. The business is effectively a monopoly in several high-growth digital categories.
The primary source of protection is a massive network effect combined with high switching costs. When a user has their identity, credit history, and monthly bill payments tied to one app, leaving is a major inconvenience. This dominance is proven by an ROIC of nearly 42%, a figure that would be impossible to maintain without a structural competitive edge.
The combination of a 24.7% net margin and high retention rates proves that Kaspi's advantage is durable. These numbers are consistent with a wide moat, as they have remained high even as the business scaled from a small local bank to a multi-billion dollar platform. The business produces technology-like margins with bank-like customer loyalty.
The forward-looking verdict is that this moat is strengthening as Kaspi expands into neighboring markets and Türkiye. The single most important signal of this strength is the company's ability to cross-sell more products per user each year without increasing its marketing spend.
Consistently met or exceeded growth targets while maintaining 40%+ ROIC over multiple years.
Used FCF to acquire Hepsiburada and Rabobank Türkiye while maintaining a 0.15x debt-to-equity ratio.
CEO Mikheil Lomtadze is a co-founder with a significant equity stake in the multi-billion dollar range.
Capital Allocation Track Record
Management quality is exceptional, led by co-founder Mikheil Lomtadze who has successfully pivoted the company from a traditional bank into a dominant technology platform. Their judgment is best seen in how they have scaled the Marketplace and Payments units to 70% gross margins without losing control of credit quality in the Fintech division. Unlike many fast-growing fintech firms, they have prioritized profitability and capital efficiency, delivering a 41.7% return on invested capital that proves they are disciplined operators.
The primary governance risk is key-person dependency on Lomtadze, as the company’s strategic vision and high-speed execution are closely tied to his leadership. While there is a seasoned management team including long-time executives like Yuri Didenko, the "super app" strategy is a complex integration of three different industries that requires a unique level of founder-led coordination. Shareholders should be aware that the thesis is heavily reliant on this leadership team remaining intact as they venture into the more competitive and volatile Turkish market.
We expect revenue to grow from $4372B in FY2026 to $7820B in FY2031 (~12% CAGR), with EPS growing from $5803.16 to $12825.35 (~17% CAGR). Revenue growth is driven by the continued transition of Kazakhstani retail to the Kaspi.kz e-commerce marketplace and Operating margin expected to reach ~40% by FY2031.
International expansion scales the super app model to Türkiye. By acquiring Hepsiburada, Kaspi can apply its proven high-margin playbook to a market four times the size of Kazakhstan.
Continued shift from cash to digital payments in Kazakhstan. As the remaining cash transactions move to the Kaspi QR network, the company earns more transaction fees with zero extra cost.
Marketplace expansion into new categories like travel and cars. High-value categories increase the total amount of money moving through the app, boosting commission revenue.
Regional geopolitical instability impacts the Kazakh or Turkish economies. Conflict or sanctions in the region could cause currency volatility that reduces the USD-value of Kaspi's earnings.
Credit quality deteriorates during a significant regional economic downturn. A spike in loan defaults would directly hit the Fintech unit's profitability and the company's cash flow.
Regulatory changes in Türkiye restrict the fintech expansion strategy. New banking or e-commerce laws in Türkiye could slow the integration of Hepsiburada into the Kaspi ecosystem.
Below is our estimate of current and future fair value, with detailed reasoning and assumptions. Fair value is a judgment, not a fact, and other analysts will likely land on different numbers. Use it as one data point in your research, and apply your own discretion in any investing decision.
We use a Forward P/E approach (price-to-earnings applied to next year's earnings) to derive our fair value. This framework fits Kaspi because the company is consistently GAAP profitable and its "Super App" ecosystem functions as a unified platform where earnings, rather than just revenue, are the clearest signal of long-term value.
Our calculation applies an 8.5x multiple to the FY2027 EPS of $6,661.94 KZT, which converts to approximately $13.88 in U.S. dollars. An 8.5x multiple sits significantly below regional peers like Nu Holdings (28x) and MercadoLibre (45x), a conservative positioning that accounts for Kazakhstan's geopolitical risk while rewarding Kaspi’s superior 40%+ return on invested capital. We used the deterministic engine's FY2027 EPS projection of $6,661.94 KZT verbatim, applying a current exchange rate of 480 KZT/USD to arrive at the $118 per-share fair value.
Cross-checked with an EV/Revenue approach (FY2027 projected revenue of $5.2B × 4.0x peer-anchored multiple), we get a fair value of $114. This is within 4% of our Forward P/E answer of $118, strongly confirming our result. The 4.0x revenue multiple is conservative compared to MercadoLibre's 5.2x, but it appropriately reflects Kaspi's higher operating margins (30%+) and the successful integration of Hepsiburada in Turkey, which triples the total addressable market.
We're assuming Marketplace take rates — the fee Kaspi charges merchants — remain stable at approximately 8.5% through FY2027. This is reasonable because Kaspi's "Super App" dominance in Kazakhstan provides massive pricing power, and the high-margin value-added services like advertising and delivery are currently growing at 73% year-over-year, which supports the overall take rate even if base commissions face pressure.
We're assuming the Turkey expansion successfully replicates the core ecosystem model by reaching 50% of total e-Commerce GMV by next year. The recent regulatory approval to acquire Rabobank A.Ş. in Türkiye and the full-quarter consolidation of Hepsiburada show that management is moving aggressively to export its high-margin fintech and payments layers to a market three times the size of Kazakhstan.
We're assuming the dividend payout remains at or above 64% of net income. Management recommended a KZT 850 dividend per ADS in Q1 2026, and with a return on equity (ROE) of 44%, the company generates more cash than it can internally reinvest, making it a rare combination of a high-growth tech platform and a reliable yield play.
The biggest risk is a sharp devaluation of the Kazakhstani tenge (KZT) against the U.S. dollar. Because Kaspi earns its revenue in local currency but the stock is priced in dollars, a 20% currency slide would knock roughly $24 off the per-share fair value even if the business performs perfectly. Watch the National Bank of Kazakhstan’s currency reserves and global oil price trends as the primary early signals of currency stress.
Bear case ($85): USD/KZT exchange rate devalues by more than 20% in a single twelve-month period; or Marketplace segment take rates drop below 7.5% due to aggressive pricing from regional e-commerce entrants.
Bull case ($155): Turkey expansion (Hepsiburada) reaches adjusted EBITDA breakeven ahead of schedule in FY2027; or Marketplace GMV growth accelerates above 45% as consumer purchase frequency crosses 20 per quarter.
Clearthesis wrote this report from 37 sources, including SEC filings, industry research, and recent news.
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© 2026 Clearthesis.ai · Report generated on July 9, 2026
This is an AI-generated analysis for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Data and analysis may not reflect recent developments if viewed significantly after the generation date. Always conduct your own due diligence before making any investment decisions.