ITS joins International Capital Market Association
ITS joined the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) in April 2025, expanding its opportunities for international cooperation and reinforcing the role of the Astana International Financial Centre in the global market.
ICMA is the leading international association uniting participants in the global capital market. As of April 2025, it has 620 members from 70 countries, including major banks, exchanges, regulators and infrastructure institutions. The association actively promotes standards, best practices and legal frameworks to ensure the efficient and transparent functioning of capital markets.
“ITS’s accession to ICMA brings new opportunities for the platform’s development and enhances its international standing. Membership provides access to global best practices, regulatory standards and infrastructure initiatives in capital markets. It also expands cooperation with international market participants and supports the further integration of Kazakhstan’s financial system into the global financial community,” said Chingiz Kanapyanov, CEO of ITS.
Alongside ITS, new ICMA members in April 2025 include Borsa Italiana, Charles Schwab, Daiwa Securities Capital Markets Singapore and others.
In 2024, ITS joined the Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges (FEAS), which brings together 32 members from 29 countries to support the development of capital markets in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East, as well as the Association of Islamic Finance and Business (AIFB), which promotes the advancement of Islamic finance in Kazakhstan. In February 2024, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) included ITS in the list of companies positively assessed for compliance with European regulatory requirements.
About ITS
ITS is an international liquidity hub. Central to ITS's business model are the principles of best execution and smart order routing technology. These principles enable investors to execute securities transactions at the best prices available on the global financial market, regardless of the transaction volume. This technology ensures that the liquidity for foreign securities on ITS matches that of leading international platforms where these securities are traded.
ITS Central Securities Depository Limited, the central depository for ITS, offers depository services for the storage and settlement of securities. The depository has received Qualified Intermediary with primary withholding responsibility (WQI) status from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Operating a clearing house that acts as a Central Counterparty, ITS assumes the counterparty role for all obligations of clearing participants and manages the clearing process for transactions on the ITS trading platform.
ITS also calculates its own indexes: the ITS World index (ITSW) and the ITS Shariah index (ITSS).
Trading of the first ETF in Central Asia and Caucasus, pegged to the performance of ITS’s own index – ITS World (ticker: ITSW), began on ITS in November 2024, providing a wide range of investors with a convenient and balanced instrument for investing and trading with a low entry threshold. In January 2025, the ETF lineup expanded with the introduction of a fund based on the ITS Shariah Index.
ITS's direct clients include professional securities market participants from Kazakhstan and other countries, such as financial intermediaries who are accredited and directly registered at the AIFC. Investors, both private individuals and legal entities, access trading through these financial intermediaries, such as brokers and banks.
ITS Press Service
pr@itsx.kz