'If the Customer Doesn't Need It, We Shut It Down': How Kaspi.kz Decides Which Products to Develop

"Our conversation always goes like this: does the customer need it or not? If the customer doesn't need it, we close it. If the customer needs it, we develop it," he said.

The Product Evolves Alongside the Customer

According to the head of Kaspi.kz, a product must evolve alongside the customer, taking into account new opportunities to better solve their problems. This requires the company to be willing to reassess not only its product lineup but also how the organization itself is structured.

"We think about the customer first. If we need to change, we'll change," Lomtadze stressed.

In his view, this principle allows the company to avoid retaining assets and processes that have lost demand and to concentrate resources on areas where customer demand remains or is growing. The deciding criterion in every case is the same — whether the customer needs the product.

The Next Stage — A Personal AI Assistant

Kaspi.kz applies the same approach to the next stage of its development — the creation of a personal AI assistant for customers' everyday tasks. The logic remains unchanged: the company develops a direction if it sees a real user need and follows changes in their behavior.

For the Kazakh market, the Kaspi.kz example is telling: one of the country's largest fintech players demonstrates that even successful and costly formats — such as a physical branch network — are subject to wind-down when customer demand shifts to digital channels. The willingness to close directions that were in demand yesterday but are now redundant frees up resources for new products, including artificial intelligence-based projects.