Uzbekistan’s mobile-exclusive financial institution, TBC Financial institution Uzbekistan, has raised $37 million in a brand new funding spherical to bolster its dominating digital presence within the Central Asian nation by growing new AI and tech merchandise and attracting extra tech-savvy clients.
The recent funding, made by the financial institution’s London-based mother or father TBC Group, comes simply 5 months after it raised $38.5 million in July. The mother or father firm additionally led the final spherical, which included participation from its shareholders, the European Financial institution for Reconstruction and Improvement (EBRD) and the World Financial institution’s Worldwide Finance Company (IFC).
Uzbekistan has been a pretty marketplace for digital companies lately, with practically 90% web penetration and a younger inhabitants — 60% of its complete inhabitants is beneath 30, per UNICEF. Nonetheless, a big share of the nation’s banking belongings stays with its state banks. TBC Group sees this as a progress alternative.
Began in 2020 beneath TBC Group Uzbekistan, the financial institution gives a cellular app by way of which clients can open financial institution accounts and entry banking providers, together with money loans and deposits. It’s 60% owned by London’s TBC Group and 20% every by IFC and EBRD.
The Uzbekistan group not too long ago expanded its monetary lineup within the nation with its in-house processing heart to streamline cost operations and shorten time-to-market for brand spanking new choices, and entered strategic partnerships with Visa and Mastercard. Additional, it launched the Salom debit card and Osmon bank card and launched TBC Enterprise, a digital banking service for small and medium Uzbek enterprises.
In the previous couple of months, TBC Uzbekistan additionally began constructing its proprietary AI options, together with brokers to deal with cost reminder calls for purchasers taking loans. Hughes advised TechCrunch that these brokers attended 42% of all of the reminder calls within the third quarter.
Subsequent yr, TBC Uzbekistan plans to increase 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, stated in an unique interview.
Hughes advised TechCrunch that the group employed AI consultants who constructed AI assistant Alice for Russia’s Yandex. These consultants have constructed a finance-specific LLM primarily based on Meta’s Llama that understands native nuances and native languages, together with Uzbek, the chief stated.
Whereas Hughes didn’t disclose the precise capital the group is particularly placing into its AI effort, he stated that “a fabric portion of the cash raised can be going to the AI initiatives, however nonetheless, the overwhelming majority can be for constructing and scaling” its enterprise and shopper merchandise.
One in all them can be insurance coverage.
TBC Uzbekistan presently gives insurance coverage by way of a third-party service supplier, nevertheless it plans to grow to be an insurer within the nation subsequent yr. It additionally plans a buy-now-pay-later answer and an SME lending product. Equally, 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. Nonetheless, the nation’s rising digital base and younger inhabitants have drawn curiosity from overseas gamers. Hungry’s OTP Financial institution and South Korea’s Korea Improvement Financial institution have already arrange their outlets within the nation. Equally, France’s Société Générale, Kazakhstan’s Kaspi, and the U.S.’s Citi Financial institution are exploring to enter the nation.
“It’s not tremendous aggressive right this moment, however it’s going to definitely grow to be an increasing number of aggressive as we might go alongside over the subsequent few years,” Hughes stated.
TBC Uzbekistan, which additionally operates the digital funds app Payme and Sharia-compliant credit score enterprise Payme Nasiya, has a person 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 energetic customers and garnered a web revenue of $27 million for the primary 9 monthsm of the yr, up from $23 million within the monetary yr 2023. Furthermore, it’s projecting $75 million in web revenue in 2025.