The most famous among Kazakhstanis are commodity credit (67.6%) and bank deposit (60.4%), which indicates the respondents’ high awareness of these financial products.
Bank deposit is a product most often used by respondents over the past two years - 38.2%; in 2022, at the time of the survey, it was used by 35.6% of respondents. For comparison, over the past two years, 36.9% of respondents used a commodity loan, and in 2022, 23% of respondents.
In addition to these services, respondents have been using a residential loan or mortgage (39.1%), Internet and mobile banking (38.8%), and retirement annuity (38.7%) most often over the past two years.
By the way, here you can choose a loan or deposit that will meet your expectations.
When choosing financial services, Kazakhstanis most often consider several options in different financial institutions (43.3%). The age-related specifics of the survey participants prove that the younger the respondent, the more they analyze the service market in search of the most suitable options: 18-29 years old - 43.2%; 30-49 years old - 44.3%, respondents from 50 to 63 years old - 41.6%, over 63 years old - 40.5%. In terms of gender, it has been revealed that women (44%) show more interest in seeking services than men (42.6%).
One of the important indicators of financial literacy is the procedure for signing official documents in financial institutions. The predominant share of the population (2022 - 45.2%, 2021 - 44.9%) claims that when signing an agreement with a financial institution, they are attentive, having read and clarified all the conditions. A low level of knowledge in signing official documents was shown by respondents from Karaganda (30%) and Pavlodar (27.3%) regions, a high level - by Aktobe (50%), Almaty (48%), Kyzylorda (48%), North Kazakhstan (48%) and West Kazakhstan (48%) regions.
Awareness of the financial system
A third of the surveyed consider financial institutions as an achievement of their goals (32.5%), they easily navigate in financial services (31.2%) and know well which financial institutions operate in Kazakhstan (30.4%).
However, women are more likely to distrust (4.8%) and doubt the reliability of the financial system (5.3%) than men (3.6% and 3.8%, respectively).
In general, the population is aware, which authorities should be contacted in case of violations of rights by financial institutions. The survey results allow us to confirm the development of both state and non-state sectors. According to respondents, the responsibility for offenses with the Department for Consumer Rights Protection of Financial Services of the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market (29.5%), lawyers and attorneys (29.1%), as well as NGOs (25.3%) prevail among them.
Every fifth respondent (19.6%) resolved their issue with a financial institution. Every sixth (17.7%) contacted a lawyer/attorney, and every seventh (14.9%) contacted the authorized body for development and regulation of the financial market. About 10% resorted to judicial methods of settlement.
Financial fraud
The most common types of financial fraud are telephone (34.2%) and Internet fraud (32.7%). According to survey, more than half of respondents, met with financial fraud (55.8%). Usually, these are telephone fraud “vishing” (34.2%) and Internet fraud “phishing” (32.7%). 21.6% of surveyed were involved in Ponzi scheme fraud, and 11.5% were involved in payment card scams.
The most common ways for fraudsters to communicate with citizens are calls on mobile or landline phones (51.5%), as well as messages in social networks and instant messengers (33.4%). In 56% of cases, they are possible to recognize, but still the remaining 44% of respondents can’t identify the offense in a timely manner.
The older generation most often falls for scammers’ ploy, as 50.7% of respondents of retirement age (63+) have not recognized fraud. As it turns out, scammers are more trusted by women (45.3%) than men (42.6%).
In terms of regions, high rates on answer “No, it was not possible to recognize” are in the cities of Almaty and Shymkent (49.3% each), East Kazakhstan region (48.7%) and Astana (48%). These numbers may indicate high risks of professional economic fraud, primarily in large metropolitan areas.
The level of citizens' awareness of what to do when faced with fraud is quite high: respondents most often search for information on the Internet (37.9%) or cut off further contact with the offender (29.8%). However, the low level of turning to law enforcement agencies for help (3.1%) necessitate risks of impunity and inability of exposing criminals.
Pensioners most often partially gave information to criminals (6.3%) and never clarified information with the organization from which the criminal called (0%).
The gender specifics of answers to this question shows that women are more prone to being deceived by scammers: 9.2% have partially given the information they needed, for comparison, this figure for men is 2.9%.
Due to the widespread activity of financial fraudsters, more than half of the respondents claimed they did not suffer any consequences as they did not interact with them (57.2%), while psychological pressure was the most noticeable (34.4%).
Photos are from open sources.
