A fortress-capital, >30% ROE Kazakh banking utility where mid-teen dividends—not multiple expansion—do most of the heavy lifting.
Overview
Halyk Bank (HSBK.IL) is Kazakhstan’s largest, systemically critical universal bank, with a century-long lineage (roots to 1923) and a diversified platform spanning corporate, SME, retail, and investment banking, plus profitable non-banking subsidiaries (insurance, asset management, leasing, telecom, and a growing digital lifestyle ecosystem). By late-2025 it operated a “fortress” balance sheet with ~20.4T KZT in assets, serving as the leading lender, key transaction clearing institution, and dominant depository franchise. Its GDRs trade on the LSE (40 common shares per GDR), complementing KASE and AIX listings. The franchise is underpinned by a very large customer base (~10.2M active customers) and deep corporate relationships (state-owned enterprises and resource-sector champions), creating an exceptionally low-cost, sticky funding base and enabling outsized net interest income even in volatile macro conditions. Halyk’s scale in corporate banking (credit facilities, syndications, trade finance, guarantees, payroll) makes it a central conduit to the real economy, while retail/SME banking captures significant national shares (~28.8% of retail deposits; ~19.5% of retail loans). Strategically, Halyk is extending beyond “balance-sheet banking” toward capital-light revenues via insurance (Halyk-Life), brokerage (Halyk Invest), and marketplace/payment monetization (Halyk Market) delivered through the Super-App—embedding the bank into everyday consumer commerce and corporate supply chains and improving resilience versus cyclical credit risk.