Uzbekistan's digital banking market is entering a new phase of competitive intensity. A young population, near-ubiquitous internet penetration, and a banking sector still heavily concentrated among state institutions have made the country one of the most consequential emerging market opportunities in fintech. Against this backdrop, TBC Bank Uzbekistan — the mobile-exclusive bank backed by London-listed TBC Bank Group — has raised $37 million in a new funding round to accelerate its AI development programme, expand its insurance offering, and deepen its presence across retail and SME financial services. The raise comes just five months after a prior $38.5 million round, underscoring the pace at which the institution is investing in its next growth phase.
The investment was led by TBC Bank Group, with continued participation from its institutional co-shareholders: the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank Group. The involvement of both development finance institutions reflects confidence in both the commercial trajectory and the development impact of TBC Uzbekistan's model. The bank is 60% owned by TBC Group, with EBRD and IFC each holding a 20% stake — a shareholder structure that brings both capital discipline and international governance standards to its operations.
The Structural Opportunity in Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan presents a structural opportunity that TBC Bank Group identified early and has been systematically building against since 2020. Nearly 90% of the country's population has internet access, and 60% of the total population is under the age of 30 — a demographic composition that naturally drives demand for digital-first financial services. Yet a significant share of banking assets remains concentrated in state-owned institutions. For a digital bank positioned to offer a superior mobile experience across lending, payments, and deposits, this gap between consumer readiness and incumbent product quality represents a durable growth opportunity rather than a short-term opening.
Expanding the Product Range Across Verticals
The bank has been building out its product range across multiple verticals. It has established an in-house processing centre to streamline payment operations and shorten time-to-market for new offerings, and entered strategic partnerships with Visa and Mastercard. The Salom debit card and Osmon credit card have been introduced to the consumer segment, while TBC Business — a digital banking platform for small and medium enterprises — extends the ecosystem into the SME segment that represents a significant share of Uzbekistan's economic activity. Each product addition deepens the institution's relevance across more of its users' financial lives.
AI as the Centrepiece of the Investment
Artificial intelligence is the centrepiece of TBC Uzbekistan's forward investment strategy, and the new funding allocates a material portion to this programme. The bank has recruited specialists who built AI assistant Alice for Russia's Yandex, who have developed a finance-specific large language model based on Meta's Llama architecture. The model is designed to understand local linguistic and cultural nuances, with support for the Uzbek language — a capability that internationally developed models have consistently underdelivered. Oliver Hughes, Head of International Business at TBC Bank Group, described the direction clearly: the bank is going deeper into the financial life of retail customers in Uzbekistan, building out product by product across different verticals.
The early results from AI deployment validate the investment thesis. AI-powered agents handled 42% of all loan repayment reminder calls during the third quarter — a figure that has since climbed to over 90% of early-stage delinquency interactions as of mid-2025. Sales and service bots are being rolled out alongside a dialogue-based mobile interface that allows customers to interact with the application using voice rather than text. This combination of voice-first AI and native Uzbek-language support positions TBC Uzbekistan to deliver a customer experience that generic digital banking platforms operating in the market are not equipped to replicate.
The behaviour of Uzbekistan's digitally active population reinforces the commercial logic of this investment. The sustained demand for financial information reflected in high search volumes for terms such as "конвертер валют" and "kurs" signals a consumer base that routinely turns to digital platforms for real-time economic orientation — tracking exchange rates, comparing financial conditions, and using online tools to inform everyday decisions. For an ecosystem that integrates banking, payments, lending, and insurance within a single mobile interface, this habitual digital engagement is both a measure of market readiness and a foundation for long-term platform loyalty.
Insurance and the Next Product Frontier
Insurance is the next major product frontier for TBC Uzbekistan. The bank currently offers insurance through a third-party provider, but plans to obtain its own insurance licence and operate as a direct insurer. A buy-now-pay-later product and an expanded SME lending offering are also in development. The Salom debit card will be enhanced with new benefits designed to attract and retain a broader customer base. Each of these additions is expected to increase the revenue generated per user while expanding the total addressable market the bank can serve.
A Changing Competitive Landscape
The competitive landscape is evolving. While Uzbekistan has not historically been a highly contested banking market, international players are taking notice. Hungary's OTP Bank and South Korea's Korea Development Bank are already operating in the country, and France's Société Générale, Kazakhstan's Kaspi, and Citibank have all been exploring entry. Hughes has acknowledged that competition will intensify over the next few years — but TBC Uzbekistan's combination of first-mover scale, proprietary AI infrastructure, and a fully integrated digital ecosystem provides a structural head start that new entrants will find difficult to close quickly.
The financial metrics reflect a business that is scaling with discipline. TBC Uzbekistan operates Payme, a digital payments application, and Payme Nasiya, a Sharia-compliant instalment credit platform, as part of its broader ecosystem. The combined user base reached 16.9 million registered users as of September 2024, up from 13.2 million at the end of 2023, with 4.9 million monthly active users. Net profit for the first nine months of 2024 came in at $27 million. The bank is projecting $75 million in net profit for 2025 — a target that, given the trajectory of its AI deployments and product pipeline, represents a credible and well-supported ambition. The decisions being made now — in AI architecture, product breadth, and capital deployment — are positioning TBC Uzbekistan to define what modern digital banking looks like in Central Asia for the decade ahead.
TBC Bank Uzbekistan Raises $37 Million to Scale AI Infrastructure and Expand Into Insurance and SME Lending