Freedom Holding Highlights Development Plans for Its Freedom Broker Division

While Freedom Holding continues to diversify its business, brokerage remains a top strategic priority. Represented by six licensed entities across Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan, the brokerage segment is still the company’s largest revenue contributor — outperforming all other divisions.

According to Freedom Holding’s report for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025 (October–December 2024), brokerage operations generated $213.3 million in revenue — accounting for 32.5% of the holding’s total earnings during the reporting period. As of December 31, 2024, the division served 618,000 brokerage accounts — an 11% increase quarter-over-quarter.

Kazakhstan remains the primary revenue source for Freedom’s brokerage operations. Two companies operate there under the Freedom Broker brand. One provides access to the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) and the Astana International Exchange (AIX), while also covering international platforms. The second offers clients access not only to local markets (KASE, AIX) but also to global exchanges, including the NYSE, NASDAQ, London Stock Exchange (LSE), Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FWB), and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX).

At the end of 2024, Freedom Broker reported $98 million in revenue — a 24% year-over-year increase. Client assets in Kazakhstan’s brokerage segment grew by 27.5%, reaching $4 billion. In July 2024, Freedom Holding’s own shares — traded on NASDAQ since 2019 — were cross-listed on AIX under the same ticker: FRHC.

Freedom Broker’s transaction volume increased 30% year-to-date. The brand currently ranks second only to Halyk Bank in KASE’s equity trading volumes, while Freedom Finance Global PLC holds the top position in KASE’s bond market rankings.

By year-end 2024, brokers within the Freedom ecosystem recorded a 55% increase in equity turnover and a 110% rise in bond turnover on KASE. On the AIX exchange, turnover rose 36% for equities and 80% for bonds.

In 2023, Kazakhstan launched the ITS — a new trading platform under the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC). Today, ITS clients can trade shares of the world’s largest companies, including Tesla, NVIDIA, Apple, Coinbase, Amazon, Microsoft, and Netflix, as well as depositary receipts of European and Asian giants like AstraZeneca (UK), Shell (UK/NL), Novartis (Switzerland), SAP (Germany), Sony (Japan), and LG Display (South Korea).

Freedom was the first broker to register on the ITS platform. The central objective of ITS is to consolidate operations within a “liquidity hub” and foster market growth.

Freedom Broker is also expanding its retail offering, including:

• Options trading — derivatives that grant the right to buy or sell assets at predetermined prices

• Digital financial assets (DFAs) — retail trading will initially be capped at $1,000

Additionally, the company plans to introduce “D-accounts” within the Freedom SuperApp — interest-accruing accounts linked to money market funds. Clients will be able to earn daily interest via repos (repurchase agreements), similar to Russia’s “investkopilka” products offered by leading banks.

Brokerage clients in Kazakhstan will also gain access to referral programs, modeled after those already operating in the group’s European brokerage structures.

Freedom Broker is also set to reformat its investor card (a multi-currency card for depositing into and withdrawing from brokerage accounts) in 2025. First launched in 2019, the card has traditionally been tied to a brokerage account, which in turn required the client to have a classic bank account with an international IBAN.

Until now, this structure made it impossible to open a brokerage account and link a card remotely — something the company aims to change moving forward.

Another strategic focus is combating financial fraud, which has been on the rise in Kazakhstan and other CIS countries. Freedom Broker will address this issue in part through its participation in the Antifraud Center, established in summer 2024 by the National Payment Corporation under the National Bank of Kazakhstan.