Astana, 23 October. The investment income of the Unified Accumulative Pension Fund (ENPF) since the start of the year fell from more than 1.1 trillion tenge at the end of August to about 800 billion tenge at the end of September because of the stronger tenge, said National Bank deputy governor Aliya Moldabekova.
Meanwhile, pension money managed by private companies rose from 137.5bn to 206bn tenge.
Part of the pension assets is invested in foreign currency, and when the tenge strengthens their value in tenge falls even though the dollar amount does not change. National Bank Governor Timur Suleimenov illustrated this: $10,000 is worth 5m tenge at a rate of 500, but only 4.6m tenge at 460. Moldabekova stressed that income remains positive and suggested that savers consider private managers.
In a month Kazakhs transferred more than 60bn tenge of pension savings to private investment portfolio managers. There are six such companies: in January 2026 Halyk Global Markets stopped managing pension money and Tansar Capital entered the market. Suleimenov admitted that achieving high returns for the ENPF is "really difficult".
What it means: Pension savings in tenge have "shrunk" not because of bad investments but because of the exchange rate: dollars are still dollars but are worth fewer tenge. Some savers are responding by moving money to private managers.
Who benefits: Private managers, who receive inflows; savers, who get a choice of strategy. When the tenge weakens, the currency part of the ENPF portfolio will gain again in tenge terms.
Background: Ulysmedia calculated that the ENPF's real investment return for the first nine months of 2026 turned out almost 300bn tenge lower than reported in August.
List of sources used: BES.media, Negizgi Aqsha, LS, Ulysmedia
Artificial intelligence was used in preparing this material.
