OREANDA-NEWS. December 19, 2008. Announcing launch of the project of international cash transfer via mobile phones for the first time in the world, Halyk Bank of Kazakhstan has summarized progress in other remote services for 2008 http://www.halyk24.kz/news/16, reported the press-centre of Halyk Bank

For the convenience of our customers the www.halyk24.kz project was launched in February 2008, it connects all remote services of the Bank on one platform. The main goal of the project which has been nominated for “National internet award - AWARD.KZ”, – is to show variety of Bank services to customers which is already available for them in remote mode. Having confirmed its technological leadership, Halyk Bank is one of few in the market that provides actual statistical data directly to the public and in particular the preliminary results for 2008 are stated below as a part of remote sales channel:

- Internet-Banking for individuals. One of the first internet-banking system launched by Kazakhstan banks (1 June 2000), initially used electronic digital signature (EDS) that allowed to provide for clients the broad range of products which are available in the Kazakhstan market via Internet (including intrabank and interbank transfer, payments to free recipients, repayment of loans, deposit opening and replenishment, retirement accounts review, tax payment and so on).

Last year Halyk Bank’s “Internet-Banking system for individuals” (www.mybank.kz) was recognized as “The Best e-service of Kazakhstan in 2007” by Communication and Information Agency of RoK. According to the results of last year the system has become the biggest one in the country by total turnover (KZT 18.8 bn) and has earned more than KZT 52.6 mn. Today Bank’s employees conduct pilot production of modernized system, which became more convenient for customer in terms of authentication (advanced technology is used– generation of dynamic password by mobile phone) and give an opportunity to customer to control all his accounts with Halyk Bank and subsidiaries of Halyk Group. New system will be available from 2009 spring.

- Internet-Banking for legal entities. The most modern system of remote banking services for legal entities which has ever been launched in Kazakhstan and the only one among our banks that uses information cryptographic protection product certified by government (Tumar CSP Solution from “Gamma –Technologies”) for protection of its customers and EDS formation.

The customer has an opportunity to use any of three modules of the system: Bank- customer” (software is installed on customer’s computer), “Internet-customer” (access to control accounts via web-portal https://ib.halykbank.kz) or “Internet-extract” (access to information on accounts by https://ibank.halykbank.kz without EDS use). This year audit of Delloite Company confirmed high reliability of security and quality level of service provided by system. In 2008 there arose new opportunities– such as automatic approval of payments up to KZT 1 mn, control of accounts with subsidiary being in different branches of the Bank, flexibility for authorization of payments within entity (For more details, please visit:

http://www.halyk24.kz/remote/internet_bank_corporate#page=4). Customer increase for 11 months of 2008 was 93% in comparison with the similar period of previous year and income amounted to more than KZT 445 mn (31 % growth by 2007). Herewith number of customer internet payments exceeded 1.3 mn transactions, it’s 41% of all Banks’ payments by number of transaction and 62% by amounts.

- Mobile banking. Three year ago “mobile banking” was as fantastic and when Halyk Bank introduced this product into the market in 2005, there was a lot of work both with customers by mass media and with mobile operators in order to explain advantages and to prove necessity of service. Launching of unique service was on 19 April 2005 and already after one and half year in September 2006 this service was used by more than 100 thousand persons. Mobile banking has become very popular service of remote banking in the country.

SMS-notification after each transaction greatly increased customer’s confidence for cards and using of Java-midlet with provision of banking menu on the screen of mobile phone has made service very convenient for customers (For more details, please visit http://www.halyk24.kz/remote/mobile_bank#page=3).

Now “Mobile banking” service undoubtedly is the most popular and profitable remote banking service in Kazakhstan – service users are more than 275 thousand persons, that exceeds for example all Kazakhstani systems of internet-banking together (!).This IT service profits only for 11 months of 2008 amounted to more than USD 4.8mn. This year system services were extended to subsidiaries of Halyk Group – now customers of “Kazakhinstrakh” JSC and “APF of Halyk Bank” JSC can receive information about their insurance and individual accounts with these entities. It is important to note that Halyk Bank for the first time in the world has launched SMS-notification related to insurance and pension accounts together with implemented international transfer via mobile phones.

- M-commerce. 26 December 2007 Halyk Bank opened for Kazakhstan people a door to the world of m-commerce-purchase of goods and services via mobile phone. The only thing users need is to replace SIM-card at the operator’s office free of charge (now only Beeline, SIM-cards for Kcell and Activ –in the beginning of 2009) for a new SIM-card with a bank applet and EDS keys (herewith your phone number will remain unchanged).

Having replaced the SIM-card, please, receive a bank menu on your mobile phone and an opportunity to make payments and transfers to the address of cell and providers’ companies, suppliers of cable, satellite TV and public utilities services (now more than 40 entities from 11 regions of Kazakhstan-corresponding list is available here (http://www.halykbank.kz/cards/mobil_banking/m_commerce). Presently pilot projects with e-government service fee are being tested as well as taxes from a mobile phone. This product has been nominated for award C-News AWARDS 2008 as the best IT project in the financial sphere of the CIS countries of 2007.

- E-tender platform. In the beginning of 2008 Bank started using the e-tender platform; it represents a classic type of B2B system. The www.e-tender.kz portal was introduced within record-breaking time (3 months) together with the largest tender platform TREID.SU in the CIS. The first held tender resulted in 10% savings of the budget that totally compensated all expenses related to e-platform creation. Additionally www.e-tender.kz site is available within 24 hours for registration of potential suppliers of goods and services for Halyk Group.

- “Visa to Visa 24/7” Transfers. Due to already existing tradition, Halyk Bank became the first among the Kazakhstan banks, which introduced this IT-service into the market (30 March 2007). P2P service of transfers has been very well apprehended by Halyk and other banks customers. Only for 11 months of 2008 there have been made more than 470 thousand transfers, the part of which has been made via mobile phone.

The service is attractive because ATMs and multikiosks of Halyk Bank, as well as customers’ mobile phones become remote terminals for customers of any banks with regard to internal and international transfers between cards of various banks. Please read detailed information here: http://www.halyk24.kz/cash/visa_to_visa#page=4.

Also a number of new projects of remote services are being prepared for the start:
• Access to all accounts of the customer with the bank via ATMs– the project was started on three ATMs in the middle of 2008 in Almaty. In 2009 after duplication of this service on all ATMs of the country, Halyk Bank’s customer will have an opportunity to control not only his card-account but also current, deposit and loan accounts with Halyk Bank via ATMs and kiosks.

Electronic funds – current legal framework did not allow us to launch this project in 2008, in this regard Halyk Bank together with the National Bank has initiated appropriate amendments to the legislation. As a result Kazakhstan will join this electronic service in 2009.

Internet-acquiring– presently, due to tariff reduction for Internet, an active growth of Internet users is observed and the bank is willing to assist development of Internet-commerce’s national segment, having created infrastructure with respect to payment acceptance via Internet. Presently, we are at the final stage of Visa International and Mastercard payment systems certification.

Halyk Group hopes that owing to the launch of the portal of remote bank services www.halyk24.kz, it will be easier for our customers to orientate in the variety of financial IT-services of the bank and use them more actively.