In 2023, the Agrarian Credit Corporation (ACC), a subsidiary of Baiterek National Management Holding JSC, carried out a number of important activities that had a positive impact on the activities of farmers and the Corporation itself, and also laid the groundwork for future development.

ACC has done significant work in seven areas: increasing financing, digitalization, implementing a microcredit program for youth, supporting farmers facing adverse weather conditions, as well as improving financing conditions, internal processes and corporate culture.

Funding volumes in 2023

One of ACC's key achievements in 2023 was the increase in the volume of loans provided. For the second year in a row, the corporation has broken its records in terms of the volume of financing of the agro-industrial complex, if last year, taking into account the activities of the subsidiary organization KazAgroFinance JSC, this figure was 522.3 billion tenge, this year the volume is estimated at 540.0 billion tenge.

Thanks to this, farmers received additional resources to expand production, purchase modern equipment and agricultural machinery.

Digitization

The accelerated introduction of digital products into ACC's work has become an integral part of the Corporation's strategy. Since last year, entrepreneurs have the opportunity to receive a preliminary decision on a loan within 5 minutes on the Agronesie.kz portal.

Integration of the Corporation with bank applications (KASPI, Homebank, BCC, Kazpost) allows farmers to repay loans online without fees and without leaving their business. 

In the near future, the Corporation’s clients will be able to use a mobile application that further simplifies the loan application procedures, ensures transparency of operations and allows farmers to “keep their finger on the pulse” on all issues of cooperation with the Corporation.

Youth microcredit program

In the past year, the Corporation began implementing a microcredit program for youth as an attorney (agent), which is envisaged for 2023-2025; it is planned to allocate 90.6 billion tenge over 3 years. In 2023, 29.0 billion tenge were allocated, of which projects of 5,465 entrepreneurs worth more than 25.2 billion tenge were financed. For the convenience of submitting applications, in the same year the Corporation automated the process of accepting applications online (before automation, the period was 10-15 days).

Support for farmers due to crop loss

The Corporation showed well-coordinated work during the period when problems arose with the harvest as a result of unfavorable weather conditions. To help farmers, the Corporation deferred payments to farmers in the amount of more than 35 billion tenge as quickly as possible; taking into account KazAgroFinance JSC, the amount is almost 43.5 billion tenge. Work in this direction is still ongoing; applications for both companies are under consideration for a total deferment amount of 7 billion tenge. In this case, penalties and fines are not accrued during restructuring.

In the future, the Agricultural Credit Corporation recommends that farmers pay attention to insuring their crops. The current system of voluntary insurance in the agro-industrial complex provides for state support in the form of subsidizing insurance premiums in the amount of 80%. ACC is the Operator for subsidizing part of the insurance premium under concluded insurance contracts. The main goal of developing insurance in the agricultural sector is to increase the protection of the property interests of farmers and increase the availability of financing for agricultural entities. In 2023, the total amount of insurance payments for crop production amounted to 4.0 billion tenge, which is more than 2022 by 2.7 billion tenge.

Improving financing conditions

In terms of financing conditions, the Corporation, for the first time, in order to create favorable prices for farmers, lending for spring field and harvesting work has been transferred to a medium-term basis with doubling the amount of financing.

In order to more effectively use budget funds for investment projects, the requirements have been revised with an emphasis on the industry and technological components. As part of the work to increase the transparency of the Corporation's activities, for the first time, internal requirements were discussed with industry associations, during which optimal decisions were made.

Improving internal processes

The Corporation has done a lot of work to optimize business processes; most of the changes affected the process of considering investment projects. Having rethought decision-making approaches and understanding the need to improve the convenience of services for clients, the Corporation has introduced a two-stage process for reviewing investment projects. At the first stage, an indicative examination is carried out based on a minimum package of documents; at the second stage, the applicant and the investment project are reviewed and analyzed for the possibility of financing.

This innovation allows clients to significantly save their time and money when collecting the necessary documents and quickly formulate a vision for the timing and stages of project implementation.

Improving corporate culture

Over the past 2 years, the Corporation has been intensively introducing the principles of customer focus, transparency, zero tolerance for corruption, meritocracy and placing high demands on the professionalism of employees.

Overall, the Agricultural Credit Corporation continues to be a key player in supporting agriculture, ensuring stability and growth in the industry. Its successful achievements in 2023 and strategic plans for the future demonstrate its constant commitment to improvement and development, which ultimately benefits not only farmers, but also the entire society.