Press room

On 25 November 2024, Kazakhstan's banks and financial institutions will begin implementing the new international standard for payment communications, ISO 20022, which all developed and fast developing nations worldwide adhere to.

The quality of payments and services offered by Halyk’s Web services and mobile apps will not be impacted in any way by the adoption of the new standard. All customers won't notice any changes in the way services are operated thanks to Halyk’s seamless transition to the new standard. It is crucial to remember that payments or transfers made using payment cards will not be impacted by the switch to the international standard for payment communications. Customers of the bank will have no trouble making card settlements, paying with their cards, including using QR codes, making mobile transfers, and withdrawing cash from ATMs.

We would also like to draw corporate customers’ attention to a number of points:

1. The new standards include the following new fields in Onlinebank applications when creating payments and transfers: “Actual payer”, “Actual beneficiary”, and “Residency country code”;
2. It is not required to fill out the additional fields – if the payer and beneficiary are the same, there is no need to provide information about them;
3. Card payments are unaffected by the standard update;
4. The Bank will still accept files in the old MT format with additional fields from 1C, Umag, and other accounting systems to Onlinebank;
5. Foreign exchange payments will remain unaffected by the changes;
6. The “Residency country code” field is only filled in if the beneficiary in the payment order and/or the salary payment employee do not reside in the Republic of Kazakhstan;
7. When using accounting systems (1C, Umag, and others), the fields are only set by the IT staff of these accounting systems.

How will the newly added payment fields function?

An actual payer is an individual or entity whose information is included in tax payments to fulfill payment obligations. For instance, the branch's information is contained in the “actual payer” section if the parent company pays taxes for the branch. Alternatively, if a legal entity is paying alimony for an employee, the employee is designated as the “actual payer” while the corporation as the “remitter of the money”.

An actual beneficiary is the person who receives the money. For instance, GC Government for Citizens NJSC will be the beneficiary (recipient) when pension contributions are paid, but the employees whose accounts the payments are credited to will be the actual beneficiaries.

Additionally, we would like to mention that the bank’s experts have established a solid foundation for customers to function seamlessly in the Onlinebank system, and that preparations for a smooth transfer to new standards have been ongoing throughout the year. Payments or transfers within applications won't be impacted by the switch to ISO 20022.

The international standard ISO 20022 for data interchange between financial companies was developed to automate business processes. By using a single format for transmitting payment messages during banking operations, the adoption of the new standard will save costs for all parties and give market participants access to innovative options.