Kazakhstan became one of the last countries which left the ruble zone of the former USSR. Development of national currency is a serious and time-consuming process. However, in the early 1990s our country simply didn’t have enough time.

The design of the national currency of Kazakhstan named tenge was developed and approved within several years. The first Kazakhstani banknotes were printed in London. It took eighteen flights to deliver the money to our republic. Within eight days the money of the independent state was distributed to all banks in Kazakhstan. Citizens of Kazakhstan remember the day of November 15, 1993 when the exchange of Soviet rubles for the national currency began.

Nowadays Kazakhstan is one of the four CIS countries which have their own mints. Over the years, tenge banknotes were recognized the best in the world three times. The tenge is the most protected currency in the world. Our experience was used for printing dollars which date back to the 18th century.