Electronic format of state purchases helps business to save up to ten billion tenge annually — Bakhyt Sultanov

July 3 at the meeting of the Government chaired by the Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev, digitalization of financial sector was considered.

Minister of Finance Bakhyt Sultanov reported that in 2017, out of 18 million services, the ministry electronically provided about 16 million services or 88%.

"Until the end of 2018 it is planned to transfer 6 state services exclusively to the electronic format (without the participation of the human factor), to reduce the terms of rendering and the list of documents 25 state services. Work is underway to translate electronic tax returns into a web portal and mobile application E-Government," Sultanov informed.

As a result, the share of services rendered in electronic form will be brought to 95%. Such services as tax filing, verification of excise marks and fiscal checks will be available as an open interface for the development by private IT companies of their own applications and services.

With the introduction of the Centralized Unified Personal Accounts system, the time for providing information on the availability of tax debts was reduced from three days to several minutes (more than 5 million certificates are issued annually).

Sultanov said that thanks to the centralization of personal accounts, the cases of erroneous payment of taxes were reduced three times, which led to the exclusion of unjustified accrual of penalties, it became possible to carry out an auto-offset from the tax to another tax without the application of the taxpayer.

"Today the Ministry of Finance is working to optimize and automate the budget planning process. This measure will cut expenses (paper, stationery, travel expenses, postal services) to form a budget application by 70%, and the terms of approval will be reduced four times (from 80 to 20 days)," the Minister of Finance reported.

Sultanov also informed that today in the country state purchases are carried out in electronic format. This allows the business to save up to 10 billion tenge annually (postal and travel expenses), and the state — more than 200 billion tenge.

In addition, today with the help of Astana-1 IS, the implementation of customs operations is carried out in an electronic format. The time for customs clearance is reduced to one minute. Only two months after the full-scale launch of the system, the economy of participants in foreign economic activity amounted to about 3 billion tenge or 72% compared to the same period last year.

Chairman of the National Bank Daniyar Akishev in his speech focused on the fact that the financial sector is one of the key industries where digital technologies are actively used. Thus, according to him, today almost all banks of Kazakhstan have introduced a system of remote banking. Mobile banking services are provided by 60% of banks (20 second-tier banks), which serve almost 90% of the entire client base of banks. In these systems, about 10 million users are registered, of which about 30% (3 million) regularly conduct operations.

"Every day, 400,000 transactions for six billion tenge are carried out by means of digital banking. 70% of financial transactions of business entities (legal entities) are also conducted through remote services," the head of the National Bank informed.

Akishev also said that to optimize customer service, a transition to electronic interaction with state bodies is being implemented. The topical issue for the financial sector remains the issue of excluding paper certificates required from customers when providing financial services to them.

The National Bank is also implementing projects related to the introduction of new technologies. In particular, at the end of March, the Invest Online system was launched on the basis of blockchain technology.

In addition, a number of new initiatives are being implemented jointly with the banking community, such as the introduction of a remote customer identification mechanism, the introduction of online insurance, the organization of an infrastructure for instant payments, the creation of a system for protecting against cyberthreats in the financial sector.

Minister of Information and Communications Dauren Abayev, in his turn, reported that in the framework of the State Program Digital Kazakhstan on the digitalization of the financial sector, there are 10 events in 2 directions: 6 events in the direction "Digitalization of the economy" are assigned to the National Bank, execution of 4 events in the direction "The transition to a digital state" is assigned to the Ministry of Finance.

All activities of the National Bank are financed by the Bank ‘s own funds and the participants of the financial market. Projects are implemented on time.

Regarding the issue of integration of information systems of second-tier banks with state databases and information systems, Abayev noted that the relevant amendments were made to the Law "On National Identification Number Registers" regarding the inclusion of State Credit Bureau JSC in the list of recipients of information from national registers of identification numbers, as well as to the law "On Credit Bureaus and the Formation of Credit Histories" in determining the procedure for obtaining information by State Credit Bureau JSC from state bodies and / or their subordinate organizations by concluding agreements with the owners of state databases. Amendments were approved by the Senate Parliament June 21, 2018. At present, the amendments are on the signature of the Head of State.

Since this issue will provide access only to information systems of state bodies to the second tier banks, Abayev expressed the need to provide data on the second tier banks to the information systems of state bodies (Bank2Gov).

"At the moment, the National Bank is working on the integration of the state databases of legal entities and individuals with the gateway of the National Bank. In order to avoid duplication of the existing integration of information systems, we consider it advisable for the National Bank to work out the issue of technical implementation of the integration of Gov2Bank and Bank2Gov in a comprehensive manner, taking into account compliance with all legislative norms," Abayev said.

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