Central Bank Governor on devaluation of the national currency, the Tenge

Due to the difference in inflation rates the Kazakh tenge is strengthening against the US Dollar, Tengrinews.kz reports, citing the country’s Central Bank Governor Gregory Marchenko as saying. According to him, devaluation is no threat to the Kazakh Tenge, with the Tenge/USDollar ratio being very stable. He elaborated that “there are no internal reasons for the Tenge to devalue (…) Should we look at the real exchange rate, we can see steady strengthening of the Tenge against the US Dollar; since February 2009 the Tenge has grown against the Dollar by 12%”. At the same press conference Mr. Marchenko emphasized that the National Bank had obtained consent of 9 country’s banks and KazPost Service for the National Bank to launch a single network of ATMs across Kazakhstan run by the National Bank. According to him, some banks want to retain their ATMs even if all the transactions are processed by the National Bank. “This option should be also considered (…) anyway, the service fee will be single for all ATMs across Kazakhstan”, he said. He elaborated that only four large-scaled banks of Kazakhstan – Kazkommertsbank, Sberbank, VTB and Halyk Bank – had objected to the single network of ATMs being run. “It’s quite understandable. The banks cash in on common people. The single network of ATMs should be launched to serve interests of common people in the first place, the National Bank pursues no purposes of its own when launching the network”, he said. The National Bank of Kazakhstan has started drafting a legislation to launch a single system of ATMs belonging to the National Bank [planned to replace all the current ATMs owned by the country’s commercial banks], KazTag reported May 8, citing the National Bank’s Press Service. Earlier Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev tasked the National Bank [the country’s Central Bank] to draft suggestions on launching a single system of ATMs. According to Gregory Marchenko, the National Bank’s Governor, the suggested single system of ATMs will enable to cut down the service fee twofold as compared to the current average rate. “In almost all shopping malls there are 10 ATMs on average. Some run out of cash, some are broken. People have to withdraw money using ATMs owned by other banks. The idea is to buy out all the ATMs from commercial banks. From that on ATMs will be handling cards issued by all banks”, he said earlier.