Astana, 19 October. The Almaty region department of the Financial Monitoring Agency (AFM) has shut down the Albi pawnshop chain, which lent without checking credit histories at 2% a day against a legal limit of 0.3%; its criminal income exceeded 146 million tenge, the AFM said (Kazinform, Sputnik Казахстан).
According to the agency, Albi-Lombard had been stripped of its right to operate and removed from the register of permitted organisations, but after changing its name the chain continued to lend against jewellery in the Almaty and Turkestan regions and attracted customers through advertising (Zakon.kz, Atameken Business). Deals were recorded on pledge tickets bearing old stamps (Kazinform). A pledge ticket is the document a pawnshop issues to the borrower when it accepts an item: it records the item, its valuation, and the amount and term of the loan.
The 2% daily rate is 6.7 times the legal limit, and by Sputnik's conversion the chain's income came to about $322,000 (Sputnik Казахстан). Twenty-one flats and a hotel were confiscated from the owner of the chain (Zakon.kz).
The financial regulator also spoke about pawnshops that day. Madina Abylkasymova, chair of the Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market, promised to tighten lending rules for pawnshops, the nb_kz Telegram channel reported: in her words, Kazakhs have turned to pawnshops more often since the markets for unsecured consumer loans and microloans cooled (nb_kz).
Background: The legal limit for pawnshops is 0.3% a day; according to the AFM, Albi lent without checking borrowers' credit histories (Kazinform).
List of sources used: Kazinform, Sputnik Казахстан, Zakon.kz, Atameken Business, nb_kz
Artificial intelligence was used in preparing this material.
