Kaspi.kz started as a small bank and became the app millions of people in Kazakhstan use to pay, shop, and borrow. In 2002 Vyacheslav Kim bought Caspian Bank, a privatized lender. Over the next two decades he and Mikheil Lomtadze turned it into a super app: payments, an online marketplace, and consumer loans in one place. It listed in London in 2020. In January 2024 it came to Nasdaq, in what became the largest U.S. IPO since the previous October.

From Caspian Bank to Kaspi

Kim bought the bank in 2002, and the investment firm Baring Vostok took a stake in 2006. Lomtadze joined in 2007, and the two rebuilt it around technology. Caspian Bank became Kaspi Bank in 2008. In 2019 Kaspi launched instant payments between people and shops using its app and QR codes. It bought car, real estate, and classifieds sites in Azerbaijan in 2019 and the Ukrainian payment system Portmone in 2021.

Ninety-Two Dollars a Share

Kaspi's Nasdaq debut priced 11.3 million American depositary shares at $92 each in January 2024. The company sold none of them. Kim, Lomtadze, and another holder sold shares, raising over $1 billion. Its London-listed depositary receipts had already traded for more than three years. The deal was one of the first big U.S. listings of 2024. American investors could now buy Kaspi on a U.S. exchange instead of through London. Kaspi.kz still trades on Nasdaq as KSPI.

Cover: Still Life with Dead Game, Fruits, and Vegetables in a Market, Frans Snyders. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a crowded market stall (everything in one place).