The exclusively mobile bank of Uzbekistan, TBC Bank Uzbekistanhas raised $37 million in a new funding round to strengthen its dominant digital presence in the Central Asian country by developing new AI and technology products and attracting more tech-savvy customers.
The new investment, made by the bank's London-based parent company TBC Group, comes just five months after raised $38.5 million in July. The parent company also led the latest round, which included its shareholders, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Uzbekistan has become an attractive market for digital businesses in recent years, with an internet penetration rate of almost 90% and a young population. 60% of its total population is under 30 years oldaccording to UNICEF. However, a significant share of the country's banking assets remains in state banks. TBC Group sees this as a growth opportunity.
Established in 2020 under the leadership of TBC Uzbekistan Group, the bank offers a mobile application through which customers can open bank accounts and access banking services, including loans and cash deposits.
The Uzbek group, 60% owned by the London-based TBC group and 20% each by IFC and the EBRD, recently expanded its financial offering in the country with its internal processing center to streamline payment operations and reduce processing times. marketing of new products. offers and entered into strategic partnerships with Visa and Mastercard. In addition, it introduced Salom debit card and Osmon credit card and launched TBC Business, a digital banking service for Uzbek small and medium-sized businesses.
Over the past few months, TBC Uzbekistan has also started developing its proprietary AI solutions, including agents to handle payment reminder calls from customers taking out loans. Hughes told TechCrunch that these agents responded to 42% of all callback calls in the third quarter.
Next year, TBC Uzbekistan plans to expand its AI developments by offering service and sales bots as well as a conversation-based mobile service to allow customers to interact with its application using their voice instead of going through a textual interface.
“We delve deeper into the financial lives of individual clients in Uzbekistan. So we are developing different products vertically by vertical,” said Oliver Hughes, head of international business at TBC Group, in an exclusive interview.
Hughes told TechCrunch that the group hired AI experts who created AI assistant Alice for Russian company Yandex. These experts have built a finance-specific LLM based on Meta's Llama that understands local nuances and local languages, including Uzbek, the executive said.
Although Hughes did not disclose the exact capital the group is devoting specifically to its AI efforts, he said that “a significant portion of the money raised will go to AI projects, but the overwhelming majority will nevertheless be intended for construction and scaling. its commercial and consumer products.
One of them will be insurance.
TBC Uzbekistan currently offers insurance through a third-party service provider, but it plans to become an insurer in the country next year. It also provides a “buy now, pay later” solution and an SME loan product. Likewise, the mobile bank will enrich its Salom debit card with new benefits and offers to attract more customers.
Uzbekistan is not yet a highly competitive market for a banking entity. However, the country's growing digital base and young population have attracted interest from foreign players. OTP Bank of Hungry And Korean Development Bank of South Korea have already set up their stores in the country. In the same way, Société Générale in France, Kaspi from Kazakhstanand the Citi bank in the United States are considering entering the country.
“It's not very competitive today, but it will definitely become more and more competitive as we move forward over the next few years,” Hughes said.
TBC Uzbekistan, which also operates digital payments app Payme and sharia-compliant credit business Payme Nasiya, has 16.9 million users as of September, up from 13.2 million users in December 2023. It also has 4.9 million monthly active users and raked in a net profit of $27 million for the first nine months of the year, compared to $23 million for fiscal year 2023. Moreover, it is forecasting a net profit of $75 million in 2025.
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