Kazakhstan expands digital tenge into public procurement oversight

Kazakhstan plans to widen use of the digital tenge across public procurement after linking the currency platform with the Finance Ministry’s systems in August. The move could turn the currency into a tool for tracking public spending, tightening control over budget funds and speeding up some government payments.

Why it matters: - Kazakhstan is using the digital tenge to shift budget oversight from post-spending audits to real-time tracking of public funds. - The model could make procurement money more traceable across contracts, payments and reporting. - Faster refund and payment processing could also improve efficiency in public finance.

What happened: - Kazakhstan expects to complete integration of the digital currency platform with the Ministry of Finance’s information systems in August. - After the integration, the digital tenge could be used more broadly for public procurement, including goods, medicines, fuel and other material resources. - The digital tenge is Kazakhstan’s third form of national currency, alongside cash and non-cash money. - The National Bank is the sole issuer of the digital tenge.

The details: - The Government of Kazakhstan says 340 billion digital tenge have already been issued. - Twenty pilot projects using the currency have been completed. - Another 10 projects are underway, and 50 more are being prepared. - Authorities plan to scale use of the digital tenge to about 100 projects by the end of the year. - Current pilots cover infrastructure construction, budget lending, subsidies, grant financing, state support, procurement, tax administration, and operations involving the National Bank and the quasi-public sector. - The digital tenge is mandatory for eight categories of budget expenditure in projects worth more than 100 million tenge. - A digital VAT pilot cut tax refund time from 75 days to five working days. - The system has also been tested in road repairs and in railway and gas infrastructure construction. - Funds can be digitally tagged for a specific project or spending category. - Money can then be traced from the public-sector customer to the contractor and further along the project chain. - Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov said in July 2025 that the digital tenge should ensure “full transparency and systematic control over the targeted use of budget funds.” - The government was instructed then to move at least 100 major projects financed from the state budget and the National Fund to the digital format.

Between the lines: - Alona Lebedieva, owner of Aurum Group, said the digital tenge is becoming more than a payments tool and is evolving into a potential instrument of budgetary control. - The main limitation is that traceability does not yet work at every level of the payment chain. - Funds can be monitored up to the general contractor, but the trail can break at the subcontractor level. - Some companies are not ready to use smart contracts for digital tenge transactions, and current law does not yet require them to do so. - The Ministry of Finance has prepared legislative amendments to remove that barrier. - Kazakhstan’s internal state audit authorities carried out 541 inspections in the first half of 2026, covering 1.8 trillion tenge in budget funds. - Those audits found financial violations worth 455.7 billion tenge. - The Finance Ministry is also building online budget monitoring, electronic auditing, the SMART AUDIT QAZAQSTAN analytical platform and artificial intelligence tools for risk detection. - The digital tenge rollout fits a broader push to control spending earlier in the process, not only after money has been spent.

What's next: - Kazakhstan will likely expand digital tenge use across more public projects as the Finance Ministry integration is completed. - Legislative changes are expected to broaden smart contract use and strengthen traceability through subcontractors. - The scale of future adoption will depend on how fully the payment chain is covered and how well the system connects with other state control tools. - If end-to-end traceability works, the digital tenge could become part of Kazakhstan’s core public finance infrastructure.