Almost 11 million KGS disappeared from Kyrgyz citizens' card accounts

In Kyrgyzstan, banks recorded more than 640 unauthorized transactions with bank cards in July-September this year alone. The total amount debited was almost 11 million KGS, according to regulatory reports from commercial banks.

Visa cardholders suffered the greatest losses from unauthorized debits. There were 522 incidents involving Visa cards, resulting in 9.4 million KGS being debited from accounts.

MasterCard cards came in second place, which is unusual for the Kyrgyz market. During the reporting period, 87 transactions totaling 209,000 KGS were recorded on these cards. The unusual thing about this situation is that these cards had previously been virtually absent from fraud statistics. For example, in the same period in 2024, there were no debits from MasterCard cards, and in the second quarter of 2025, only 12 cases were recorded, with a comparable amount of damage.

The third position was taken by cards of the national payment system Elkart. Thirty-two unauthorized transactions were carried out on these cards, resulting in cardholders losing 1.33 million KGS.

Comparing the situation year-on-year, there has been a decrease in the number of incidents, with 641 cases compared to 729 in the same period last year. However, in terms of the amount of losses, the trend is reversed, with total losses increasing to 10.9 million KGS compared to 10.1 million KGS a year earlier.

When comparing the third quarter with the second quarter of 2025, the trend is reversed. The number of unauthorized debits increased by 31.35%, and the amount of losses grew 2.1 times — from 5.2 million KGS. Thus, in just three months, the volume of suspicious transactions more than doubled.

In addition, banks reported 23 unauthorized transactions with foreign bank cards conducted through the infrastructure of Kyrgyz financial and credit organizations. The amount of damage is small — 18,600 KGS — but the very fact of such transactions is significant in terms of payment system risks.

Claims are being processed for all identified cases, and the actual losses to customers may turn out to be lower than reported, as some of the funds can be recovered. Nevertheless, statistics show that card fraud, despite increased security measures, remains one of the problems of the payment market.