Kaspi.kz combines rapid revenue growth, strong profitability, and a low earnings multiple, but Türkiye execution and funding-cost pressure are the key risks. The stock looks attractive for investors who can tolerate some margin volatility.
Kaspi.kz (KSPI) stands out as a rare mix of growth, profitability, and balance-sheet strength. In 1Q 2026, revenue rose 31% YoY to KZT 1.1T, adjusted EBITDA increased 9% to KZT 368B, and net income held essentially flat at KZT 252B despite higher funding costs and the heavier consolidation of Hepsiburada in Türkiye. That matters because the company is not buying growth with a broken P&L. It is expanding into a second large market while still producing a 23.3% net income margin in the quarter and a 24.9% trailing net margin.
The core investment case rests on three facts. First, Kaspi’s ecosystem is still deepening in its home market, with Payments TPV up 14% YoY, Marketplace GMV up 19%, and average net loan portfolio up 23% in 1Q 2026. Second, the highest-growth part of the model is e-commerce, where GMV rose 41%, purchases rose 43%, purchases per consumer climbed to 15.0 from 10.4, and value-added services revenue jumped 73%. Third, the stock trades at a trailing P/E of 7.88 with a market cap of about $16.7B, which is a modest multiple for a business that grew revenue 31.3% over the last year and generated KZT 491.1B of annual free cash flow in 2025.
The catch is execution risk in Türkiye and margin pressure from funding costs. Management said 1Q 2026 net income was pressured by higher deposit funding costs and the inclusion of Hepsiburada’s lower-margin retail economics. Net income margin fell to 23.3% from 30.9% a year earlier, and full-year EBITDA growth guidance remains around 5% even after a 9% increase in 1Q. That is a reminder that a great company and a straight-line earnings story are not the same thing.
For a balanced, moderate-risk investor with a medium-term horizon, the setup is attractive because the market is paying a single-digit earnings multiple for a company with dominant domestic engagement, strong returns on equity and assets, large net cash, and a credible second-leg growth story in Türkiye. The stock does not need perfection. It needs competent execution, stable credit quality, and continued monetization of user engagement. So far, the numbers support that path.
Joint Stock Company Kaspi.kz (KSPI) operates a consumer and merchant super app centered on payments, marketplace, and fintech services. The company was incorporated in 2008, is headquartered in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and trades on Nasdaq. It had 14,008 employees and reported trailing revenue of KZT 3.64T, EBITDA of KZT 2.42T, and a profit margin of 24.91%.
The business spans Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Ukraine, with Türkiye now a major strategic focus after the January 2025 acquisition of a 65.41% stake in D-MARKET Electronic Services & Trading, better known as Hepsiburada, followed by an increase to 75.96%. The acquisition cost disclosed in the 20-F was about $1.127B for the initial stake and about $66M for the additional shares. That deal changed Kaspi from a dominant Kazakhstan platform into a company trying to export its playbook into a much larger market.
Management is led by co-founder and CEO Mikheil Lomtadze, with Tengiz Mosidze as CFO. Insider ownership stands at 21.419%, while institutional ownership is 47.818%. That mix matters. Insider ownership keeps management economically tied to long-term value creation, while institutional ownership brings outside scrutiny. The float is relatively tight at 90.7M shares against 190.0M shares outstanding, which can amplify moves when sentiment shifts.
Kaspi’s public-market profile is unusual. It is categorized in some databases under technology and software infrastructure, but its GICS classification sits in Financials and Consumer Finance. The market’s confusion is understandable. Kaspi is part bank, part payments network, part marketplace, and part advertising platform. That hybrid model is exactly why the company can look cheap on bank-like multiples while still growing like a digital platform.
Kaspi reports through three main segments: Payments, Marketplace, and Fintech. In practice, the segments feed each other. Payments creates daily habit, Marketplace captures commerce intent, and Fintech monetizes both consumer and merchant activity. It is less a three-legged stool than a flywheel.
Payments remained a large and profitable engagement layer in 1Q 2026. TPV reached KZT 11.4T, up 14% YoY, while revenue rose 7% to KZT 158B and adjusted EBITDA held stable at KZT 90B. The take rate slipped to 1.03% from 1.09%, which management tied to mix shifting toward Kaspi QR and B2B payments. That pressure on take rate is real, but the segment still functions as the ecosystem’s traffic engine and cash generator.
Marketplace is where growth is accelerating. In 1Q 2026, Marketplace GMV rose 19% YoY to KZT 2.2T, revenue climbed 49% to KZT 520B, and adjusted EBITDA increased 12% to KZT 118B. Within that, e-commerce GMV rose 41% on a constant-currency, pro-forma basis, and e-commerce revenue increased 58% to KZT 394B. The spread between GMV growth and revenue growth shows improving monetization rather than simple volume chasing.
Fintech remains the largest earnings engine, but its internal mix is shifting. In 1Q 2026, average net loan portfolio grew 23% YoY to KZT 7.2T, fintech revenue increased 25% to KZT 430B, and adjusted EBITDA rose 12% to KZT 160B. TFV declined 2% YoY, yet management emphasized that it is deliberately favoring longer-duration loans that generate more revenue. Loan duration increased from 7.9 months to 9.3 months, while fintech yield held at 6%.
That shift matters because it explains why origination volume can soften while revenue and portfolio growth stay strong. It also changes how investors should read the credit book. Management said BNPL and small-ticket short-duration loans are becoming a smaller part of the mix, while merchant finance and general-purpose loans are becoming larger. If executed well, that can support revenue durability. If executed poorly, it can hide risk. So far, the reported risk metrics remain solid.
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Kaspi’s flagship product is not a single card, loan, or shopping feature. It is the super app itself, with e-commerce emerging as the clearest proof point of the model’s power. In 1Q 2026, purchases per consumer rose to 15.0 from 10.4 a year earlier, up 44% YoY. Orders rose 43%, and e-commerce GMV increased 41%. Those are engagement numbers, not just sales numbers.
The strongest sign of product-market fit is monetization improving faster than volume. E-commerce take rate rose to 15.8% from 14.9%, and value-added services revenue, mainly advertising and delivery, increased 73% YoY to KZT 86B. When a platform can raise take rate while user activity is accelerating, it usually means the product is becoming more useful to both sides of the marketplace.
Kaspi QR also deserves attention inside Payments. Management tied take-rate compression partly to a mix shift toward Kaspi QR and B2B payments. That sounds negative on the surface, but it also shows the company is embedding itself deeper into merchant workflows. Lower take rate on a more essential payment rail can still be a good trade if it strengthens ecosystem stickiness and cross-sell.
On the lending side, the flagship proposition is instant, embedded finance tied to shopping and merchant activity. The company’s decision to push longer-duration products while maintaining a 0.7% cost of risk in 1Q 2026 suggests the underwriting engine still has discipline. In consumer finance, speed without control is a time bomb. Kaspi’s reported first- and second-payment default rates of 0.9% and 0.4% indicate that bomb is not ticking loudly right now.
Kaspi’s moat comes from integration, frequency, and data. The company combines payments, shopping, and finance inside one consumer app and one merchant app. That structure creates a two-sided network effect: more consumers attract more merchants, more merchants improve selection and utility, and more transactions improve underwriting and personalization.
The engagement data is the hard proof. Company materials cite about 15.9M average MAU, 67% average DAU/MAU, and roughly 77 monthly transactions per active customer. In 1Q 2026, Payments active consumers reached 26.5M and Marketplace active consumers reached 20.4M, both up 3% YoY. Those are not passive accounts sitting in a digital graveyard. They are active users generating repeated behavior.
The company is also using technology to improve logistics and decision-making. Management said it rolled out a data-driven logistics platform in Türkiye and is using LLM and forecasting models to improve delivery speed and quality. That is not a science-fiction pitch. It is tied directly to a stated operating goal: deliver items when consumers want them, including weekends and holidays.
Kaspi’s relationship with Tencent adds strategic credibility, even if management gave no specific synergy targets. Lomtadze said Kaspi has long admired Tencent as a pioneer of the super app model. That does not create immediate earnings, but it reinforces that Kaspi is building from a proven playbook rather than inventing a category from scratch.
Returns metrics support the moat argument. Trailing ROE is 46.75% and ROA is 14.3%. Those are strong numbers for any financial platform, especially one still investing in expansion. High returns do not prove a moat by themselves, but low returns usually expose the absence of one. Kaspi is not showing that weakness.
Kaspi’s operating model has become more complex since the Hepsiburada acquisition. The company now has to integrate a large Turkish marketplace, improve delivery quality, expand low-ticket assortment, and layer in Kaspi’s own payment, advertising, personalization, and risk systems. Management said the goal is to deliver the same quality of experience in Türkiye as in Kazakhstan, and 2026 is clearly an investment year toward that target.
The operational evidence is mixed in a healthy way. Marketplace revenue grew 49% in 1Q 2026, but EBITDA grew only 12%, largely because Hepsiburada was consolidated for a full 3 months versus about 2 months in the prior-year period and is being kept around EBITDA breakeven. That slower EBITDA conversion is not ideal, but it is consistent with management’s stated plan rather than a surprise deterioration.
Supply chain commentary was also constructive. Management said there was no material disruption from Middle East developments affecting marketplace growth, and it pointed to investments in delivery speed, reasonable delivery fees, and data-driven logistics. In plain English, Kaspi is trying to fix the plumbing before it pushes harder on monetization in Türkiye.
The company’s 20-F also shows a pattern of bolt-on and strategic transactions beyond Türkiye, including Magnum E-commerce Kazakhstan and Kolesa Group. That acquisition history cuts two ways. It shows management is willing to expand adjacencies, but it also means investors should expect more integration work and more moving parts than in a pure domestic lender.
Kaspi operates at the intersection of digital payments, e-commerce, and consumer finance. Industry data in the broader retail banking and consumer credit markets points to steady structural growth, with digital channels taking a larger share of activity. That backdrop fits Kaspi well because its model is built around mobile-first engagement and embedded finance rather than branch-based distribution.
The more relevant market fact is Kaspi’s domestic position. Company materials describe it as the largest consumer-focused ecosystem in Kazakhstan. Historically, Kaspi said it had 32% share of Kazakhstan’s consumer finance market in 2019, and today it combines that lending presence with a dominant payments and commerce interface. That kind of cross-category scale is hard for single-product rivals to match.
Türkiye expands the addressable market materially. Management said Türkiye now represents about 50% of e-commerce GMV. That does not mean Türkiye contributes 50% of value today, because profitability is still being built, but it does mean Kaspi’s growth runway is no longer capped by Kazakhstan alone. The market is effectively being asked to price a profitable Kazakhstan core plus a still-early Turkish option.
The market opportunity inside Kaspi’s own ecosystem is also expanding through monetization layers. Advertising and delivery revenue grew 73% in 1Q 2026, and marketplace take rate rose to 12.1% from 11.1%. That shows Kaspi is not just participating in digital commerce growth. It is capturing more economics per transaction.
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Kaspi serves both consumers and merchants, but the real customer profile is a high-frequency digital user who wants to pay, shop, and finance purchases in one place. The company’s ecosystem metrics show behavior that looks more like a daily utility than a periodic banking app. About 77 monthly transactions per active customer and a 67% DAU/MAU ratio support that view.
On the consumer side, the strongest signal is repeat commerce activity. Purchases per consumer in e-commerce reached 15.0 in 1Q 2026, up from 10.4 a year earlier. Management also said Kazakhstan had about 27 purchases per consumer versus about 7 in Türkiye, which gives a useful benchmark for how much room remains to deepen engagement in the newer market.
On the merchant side, Kaspi’s value proposition is distribution, payments acceptance, financing, and data. The company said merchants can increase sales through omnichannel commerce, accept payments online and in store, issue invoices, pay suppliers, and monitor turnover. That breadth matters because merchant retention usually improves when a platform becomes part storefront, part checkout, and part operating system.
The customer profile also helps explain Kaspi’s underwriting edge. A platform that sees payment flows, shopping behavior, and merchant activity has richer real-time data than a lender relying mainly on static credit files. That advantage is reflected in the low first- and second-payment default rates management disclosed for 1Q 2026.
Kaspi’s direct competitors vary by segment. In Kazakhstan consumer finance and banking, Halyk Bank, Home Credit Bank Kazakhstan, and ForteBank compete for loans, deposits, and retail financial relationships. In payments and commerce, the competition is broader and includes other digital banking apps, payment providers, and e-commerce ecosystems.
Kaspi’s edge over traditional banks is integration. Halyk may have larger banking scale, but Kaspi’s model is more embedded in daily consumer behavior. Payments drive engagement, marketplace drives intent, and fintech monetizes both. A bank can copy a loan product. It is much harder to copy a habit.
Against pure e-commerce players, Kaspi’s advantage is monetization breadth. It can make money from transaction fees, advertising, delivery, lending, and merchant finance. That allows it to accept lower economics in one layer if it strengthens the whole ecosystem. The 1Q 2026 data showed exactly that dynamic in Payments, where take rate compressed but the segment still reinforced the broader platform.
The main competitive challenge is Türkiye. Hepsiburada gives Kaspi a foothold, but Türkiye is not Kazakhstan with a different flag. It is a larger, more competitive market where delivery quality, assortment, and engagement must improve before the full Kaspi playbook can show its economics. Management’s comments make clear that this is an execution contest, not a spreadsheet exercise.
Kaspi carries meaningful country and macro exposure because Kazakhstan remains the core profit pool. IMF and World Bank commentary cited in the research context points to rapid consumer lending growth in Kazakhstan and tighter macroprudential oversight. That matters for Kaspi because fintech profitability depends on both credit quality and regulatory tolerance for consumer lending expansion.
Interest rates are another key variable. Management said higher funding costs in Kazakhstan and Türkiye pressured 1Q 2026 profitability, and David Ferguson noted that a 100 to 150 bps move in funding costs in Kazakhstan had knocked around 4% off net income growth in 2025. In other words, the business is strong, but it is not immune to the price of money.
On the positive side, management said inflation in Kazakhstan had peaked in September and started to fall over the following months. It also said the current geopolitical situation was probably more positive than negative for Kazakhstan macro, while noting no material marketplace disruption from Middle East supply-chain issues. That is helpful, though the company still sits in a region where macro calm can be temporary.
Türkiye adds both opportunity and macro complexity. Kaspi signed an agreement on March 27, 2025 to buy Rabobank’s Turkish subsidiary, Rabobank A.Ş., a fully licensed bank without borrowing or deposit clients or a branch network, subject to regulatory approvals. That move supports future financial-services expansion in Türkiye, but it also increases exposure to Turkish regulatory and currency conditions.
Kaspi’s balance sheet is supported by large net cash, strong returns on equity and assets, and a 21.419% insider ownership stake that keeps management aligned with long-term value creation.
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Get Full Access →Revenue jumped 31% year over year to KZT 1.1T in 1Q 2026 while adjusted EBITDA rose 9% to KZT 368B, but net income margin still slipped to 23.3% from 30.9% as funding costs rose.
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Get Full Access →Management is still guiding to roughly 5% full-year EBITDA growth after a 9% increase in 1Q 2026, signaling that margin pressure and Türkiye integration are tempering near-term earnings momentum.
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Get Full Access →Kaspi trades at a trailing P/E of 7.88 despite generating KZT 491.1B of free cash flow in 2025, a discount that looks modest for a business growing revenue 31.3% year over year.
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Get Full Access →The stock’s valuation framework spans $72 to $134, with $102 marking the fair value midpoint that supports a Buy view on the shares.
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Get Full Access →Kaspi.kz (KSPI) is one of those businesses that looks simpler from a distance than it does up close. It is not just a bank, not just a payments company, and not just a marketplace. That complexity can keep the multiple lower than the fundamentals might deserve. For patient investors, that is often where the opportunity lives.
The facts that matter most are straightforward. Revenue rose 31% in 1Q 2026. E-commerce GMV rose 41%. Purchases per consumer climbed to 15.0. Fintech revenue rose 25%. Cost of risk stayed at 0.7%. The company held KZT 2.06T of cash against KZT 470.6B of debt at year-end 2025. And the stock still trades at a trailing P/E below 8.
That does not make Kaspi risk-free. Kazakhstan concentration, funding costs, regulation, and Türkiye integration all matter. But the company has enough profitability, liquidity, and ecosystem strength to absorb those risks better than many emerging-market growth stories. For a medium-term investor willing to accept some regional and execution volatility, Kaspi remains a Buy with a fair value estimate of $102.
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