Timur Suleimenov gave the bank's rule of thumb at the July press conference, as Tengrinews carried it: with inflation slowing to 9 to 9.5%, a moderately tight policy «implies a base rate at roughly 16%, give or take». The July decision took the rate from 17% to 16.75% with June inflation at 10.3%; June's meeting had delivered the first cut in two years, from 18%. The same July release said the bank sets no predetermined path for the rate.
August put the trigger within sight. The Bureau of National Statistics printed 9.8% year on year, down from 10.2% in July, with the monthly rate unchanged at 0.6%. Non-food goods still run at 11.4%, food at 9.5%, services at 8.9%. Kursiv's Sergey Domnin expects a cut of 25 to 50 basis points, citing 11 months of slowing inflation, core inflation down from 12.8% in January to 11.8% in July, and inflation expectations at a multi-year low.
The other number in the room is oil. Brent traded at $95.02 on Thursday morning after $95.63 at Wednesday's close, with the United States and Iran exchanging strikes again and the Strait of Hormuz back in the price; Azeri Light, the Caspian grade, stood at $101.96 in APA's Thursday-morning report.
The budget the bank is asked to protect was written at $60 a barrel and 540 tenge to the dollar; the market has delivered $95 and 456.
The republican budget for 2026 to 2028, adopted by parliament on 22 October 2025, was built on Brent at $60 and an exchange rate of 540 tenge to the dollar. Kursiv confirmed at the end of June that the $60 assumption still stood.
The tenge closed at 455.86 on KASE on Thursday. Put the two lines together and a barrel the budget valued at 32,400 tenge now sells for about 43,300 tenge, 34% more, even with a tenge 16% stronger than the budget assumed. The law fixed the guaranteed transfer from the National Fund at 2,770 billion tenge and planned no targeted transfers: the spending side was written to the $60 barrel, and it is still written to it.
Friday's decision is the first test of the July sentence, and it comes in three readings. A cut to 16,25% reads 9.8% as the trend approaching the band and keeps the sentence intact for the next print. Half a point, to 16.25%, reads the band as reached. Holding at 16.75% says 9.8 is not 9.5, and it would lean on the release's own condition, «the observance of the approved parameters of the budget», at the moment the revenue side of those parameters is being met by prices nobody planned.
What the price does next is a second-order question for a bank that targets 5% inflation and whose July release did not mention oil. The first-order question moves to the government completed under Olzhas Bektenov on Thursday: it inherits a budget written at $60 and a National Fund filling at $95, and the document that will show what it does with the difference is the 2027 budget it sends to the Kurultai.