Uzbekistan’s mobile-exclusive financial institution, TBC Bank Uzbekistan, has raised $37 million in a brand new funding spherical to bolster its dominating digital presence within the Central Asian nation by creating new AI and tech merchandise and attracting extra tech-savvy clients.
The recent funding, made by the financial institution’s London-based dad or mum TBC Group, comes simply 5 months after it raised $38.5 million in July. The dad or mum firm additionally led the final spherical, which included participation from its shareholders, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Uzbekistan has been a pretty marketplace for digital companies in recent times, with practically 90% web penetration and a younger inhabitants — 60% of its whole inhabitants is below 30, per UNICEF. However, a major share of the nation’s banking property stays with its state banks. TBC Group sees this as a development alternative.
Started in 2020 below TBC Group Uzbekistan, the financial institution presents a cellular app by way of which clients can open financial institution accounts and entry banking companies, together with money loans and deposits. It is 60% owned by London’s TBC Group and 20% every by IFC and EBRD.
The Uzbekistan group lately expanded its monetary lineup within the nation with its in-house processing middle to streamline cost operations and shorten time-to-market for brand new choices, and entered strategic partnerships with Visa and Mastercard. Further, it launched the Salom debit card and Osmon bank card and launched TBC Business, a digital banking service for small and medium Uzbek enterprises.
In the previous few months, TBC Uzbekistan additionally began constructing its proprietary AI options, together with brokers to deal with cost reminder calls for patrons taking loans. Hughes informed TechCrunch that these brokers attended 42% of all of the reminder calls within the third quarter.
Next 12 months, TBC Uzbekistan plans to broaden its AI developments by bringing service and gross sales bots and a dialog-based cellular service to let clients work together with its app utilizing their voice as a substitute of going by way of a text-based interface.
“We’re going deeper into the monetary lifetime of retail clients throughout Uzbekistan. So we’re constructing out vertical by vertical into completely different merchandise,” Oliver Hughes, head of worldwide enterprise at TBC Group, mentioned in an unique interview.
Hughes informed TechCrunch that the group employed AI consultants who constructed AI assistant Alice for Russia’s Yandex. These consultants have constructed a finance-specific LLM based mostly on Meta’s Llama that understands native nuances and native languages, together with Uzbek, the chief mentioned.
While Hughes didn’t disclose the precise capital the group is particularly placing into its AI effort, he mentioned that “a fabric portion of the cash raised shall be going to the AI initiatives, however nonetheless, the overwhelming majority shall be for constructing and scaling” its enterprise and shopper merchandise.
One of them shall be insurance coverage.
TBC Uzbekistan presently presents insurance coverage by way of a third-party service supplier, but it surely plans to turn into an insurer within the nation subsequent 12 months. It additionally plans a buy-now-pay-later answer and an SME lending product. Similarly, the cellular financial institution will improve its Salom debit card with new advantages and choices to draw extra clients.
Uzbekistan has not but been a extremely aggressive marketplace for a banking entity. However, the nation’s rising digital base and younger inhabitants have drawn curiosity from overseas gamers. Hungry’s OTP Bank and South Korea’s Korea Development Bank have already arrange their outlets within the nation. Similarly, France’s Société Générale, Kazakhstan’s Kaspi, and the U.S.’s Citi Bank are exploring to enter the nation.
“It’s not tremendous aggressive as we speak, however it’s going to actually turn into increasingly more aggressive as we might go alongside over the subsequent few years,” Hughes mentioned.
TBC Uzbekistan, which additionally operates the digital funds app Payme and Sharia-compliant credit score enterprise Payme Nasiya, has a consumer base of 16.9 million customers as of September, up from 13.2 million customers in December 2023. It additionally has 4.9 million month-to-month lively customers and garnered a internet revenue of $27 million for the primary 9 monthsm of the 12 months, up from $23 million within the monetary 12 months 2023. Moreover, it’s projecting $75 million in internet revenue in 2025.
