The government said it would pay 251 billion tenge ($2.1 billion) for 78.14 percent of shares in BTA, which has assets of $31 billion, to boost its capital by more than $2 billion.
Prime Minister Karim Masimov told a Cabinet meeting that Kazakhstan might sell part of its BTA stake once the transaction was over, adding that the government was in talks with Sberbank on this.
An unnamed source close to the talks said a senior Sberbank management team had flown to Kazakhstan to discuss a potential takeover. Sberbank declined to comment.