Kazakhstan launches crypto payments via QR codes and POS terminals

Binance Kazakhstan and Alatau City Bank rolled out Crypto Pay, a service that lets customers pay for goods and services with cryptocurrency through regular QR codes and POS terminals. The project runs inside the National Bank's regulatory sandbox with support from the Ministry of Digital Development, meaning the mechanism is being tested officially and under supervision rather than in a grey zone. At the moment of payment, crypto is automatically converted into tenge, so merchants don't need to deal with exchange rates or exchanges themselves. For businesses in Kazakhstan, this is a cue to plan ahead for how a new payment channel fits into accounting: whether a separate till is needed, how conversion should be reflected in reporting, and who reconciles incoming payments. Even companies not planning to accept crypto yet should watch the pilot — if the service scales beyond the sandbox, customer demand could arrive faster than the accounting department is ready for. In our experience with 1Cifer clients, new payment channels rarely break the till — they break the bookkeeping; and the right moment to prepare it is before the channel launches, not after the first discrepancies show up.