President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has decided to relieve Berik Sholpankulov of his duties as Deputy Chairman of the National Bank of the country. This was reported by the official website of Akorda.
According to the information, Sholpankulov himself submitted a resignation request. He held this position since 2021, but it is currently unknown who will take his place.
The day before, Sholpankulov commented on Tokayev's statement regarding the transfer of more than 7 trillion tenge (over 13 billion US dollars) through one of the Kazakh banks from a neighboring state in 2025. These funds were directed to third countries. Tokayev announced this information during a meeting at the Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA) on January 28.
In a conversation with BES.media, Sholpankulov noted that the verification of transactions, conducted jointly by the National Bank and the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market, has not yet been completed, but at the moment, no violations of the law have been identified.
He also suggested that the amount of 7 trillion tenge mentioned by the president could represent the total volume of operations rather than the actual withdrawn funds. However, he did not specify the name of the bank in question.
Upon receiving such a comment, journalists turned to the president's press secretary Aibek Smadiyarov with a question about whether Tokayev could have been provided with unverified information before the meeting.
“Kassym-Jomart Tokayev does not mention unverified data. If he stated that there were transactions amounting to 7 trillion tenge, then it corresponds to reality,” Aibek Smadiyarov commented on the situation for the KazTAG editorial office. “It is important to note that this information was intended for the participants of the meeting at the Financial Monitoring Agency and was not meant for the general public, which emphasizes its official nature. The bank through which the operations were conducted knows who is being referred to. The president, considering the political and diplomatic aspects, did not specify the country of origin of the funds and the recipient country, nor did he name the bank that carried out these transactions under sanctions.”
