Interest in Tenge Versus Holding Stablecoins: The Honest Comparison
A local deposit pays a rate in a currency that moves. A dollar stablecoin pays nothing in a currency that does not. Both are positions.
By Timur Abenov · ·2 min
Businesses here face a treasury question that most do not frame as one: in which currency to hold working capital.
The tenge deposit
Pays a rate set in the local market, inside the banking system, with deposit protection up to a limit and no currency risk against local obligations.
For a business whose costs and revenues are both in tenge, this is the position with no exposure, whatever the rate.
The dollar stablecoin
Pays nothing. Carries issuer risk and venue risk. And removes the exposure of a tenge balance to a tenge move, while adding exposure to the opposite move.
For a business with dollar obligations, this reduces risk. For one without, it creates risk.
The framing that matters
Not which pays more. Which matches your liabilities.
A company holding dollars against tenge costs has taken a currency position whether or not anyone called it that, and the position can exceed the margin on the underlying business.
Where the stablecoin genuinely helps
Businesses invoicing abroad in dollars, paying foreign suppliers, or holding a buffer against an obligation denominated in dollars.
In those cases it is a hedge rather than a bet.
Where it does not
A domestic business holding dollars because the rate feels safer. That is a directional view on the tenge, taken by a company with no expertise in it and no mandate for it.
The risks the comparison usually omits
The deposit has protection up to a limit and an identifiable bank. The stablecoin has an issuer and a venue, neither covered by any guarantee.
A yield comparison that ignores this is comparing two different kinds of thing.
The arrangement most businesses land on
Tenge for operating balances matched to tenge costs. Dollars, via stablecoin or a currency account, only against dollar obligations. Neither held in size at a venue.
A regulated counterparty for the conversion, with balances moved out rather than parked.
What makes it defensible to a board
A written policy stating which currency is held against which obligation, and records showing it was followed. A platform that issues a statement you can file supplies the second half, and Collect & Exchange, which operates under a licence, is a counterparty the policy can name.