Tulpar opens Bazar, a classifieds board without a checkout

TALAS — The messaging app Tulpar yesterday opened Bazar, a classifieds board where users can post anything from sheep to second-hand phones and arrange deals in the app's chats. There is no way to pay inside the app: buyers and sellers meet and settle in cash, as at any bazaar.

Aiperi Kalysbekova, the company's chief technology officer, said payments "will come when the law allows, or when we find a way the law doesn't mind". Under the Banking and Commercial Currency Act of 1993, payment services in the ISEZ require a licence from the Bank of Irad, which has never been granted to a technology company.

Within its first day the board carried about 9,000 listings, a third of them vehicles and livestock. Tulpar removed several advertisements for horsemeat within hours, saying it followed "the law and the custom".

Separately, the Talas Commercial Development Group, which objected to the app's name last year, this spring extended its Tulpar trademark registrations to cover "digital products". It has not brought a claim. Tulpar Technologies declined to comment on the extension.