Аңдатпа
This article examines the formation and transformation of Kazakhstan’s brokerage and investment business from the beginning of the market reforms in 1991 to mid-2026. The study focuses on professional participants in the securities market, including brokers and dealers, portfolio managers, investment funds and custodians, as well as the related exchange and depository infrastructure. The development of the sector is shown to have proceeded through several qualitatively distinct stages: the privatization and coupon experiment of the first half of the 1990s; the institutionalization and licensing of professional activities in 1997–2000; the growing role of banking financial groups, pension assets and corporate bonds in the 2000s; post-2007–2009 crisis consolidation; the expansion of the retail investor base through the People’s IPO programme; the development of an additional jurisdictional and exchange ecosystem within the AIFC and AIX; and the digitalization of brokerage services and wider adoption of omnibus-account-based record-keeping in the 2020s. As of 1 June 2026, the regulated institutional structure comprised 44 brokers and dealers, 21 portfolio managers, 11 custodian banks and three key infrastructure organizations, while the number of accounts in the Central Securities Depository’s nominal holding system reached 5.54 million. The study concludes that Kazakhstan’s modern brokerage industry emerged through a gradual transition from privatization-era intermediation to a technology-intensive investment-platform model, while its further development remains linked to the quality of the issuer base, domestic market liquidity and the level of retail investor confidence.