Neo-Bank TBC Uzbekistan Raises $37 Million To Expand And Develop AI Products

TBC Bank Uzbekistan raised $37 million in a recent funding round led by the bank’s London-based parent TBC Group to expand its services and develop AI products and services.

According to TechCrunch, the mobile-exclusive bank was founded in 2020 and has been offering customers the possibility to open bank accounts and process deposits and cash loans through its mobile app. For the past few months, TBC Uzbekistan has been developing its own AI solutions like AI agents to remind users of upcoming payments—the startup expects to expand to voice interactions in the near future.

“We’re going deeper into the financial life of retail customers across Uzbekistan. So we’re building out vertical by vertical into different products,” said Oliver Hughes, head of international business at TBC Group, to TechCrunch.

The new capital will boost the company’s AI efforts—even though the amount for this purpose has not been disclosed—and add to the $38.5 million the neo-bank raised in July.

TBC Uzbekistan expects to scale up by including new insurance services—the company currently relies on third-party services—expanding its purposes and areas of expertise.

The mobile bank reported 15.7 registered unique users in a report shared in June and proved increasing growth and revenues and its dominance in the market as the country’s largest digital bank with low competition.

“It’s not super competitive today, but it will certainly become more and more competitive as we could go along over the next few years,” said Hughes.

This year, other startups have been developing digital banking solutions for their markets and aim to expand to more regions. The Mexican fintech Stori raised $212 million in August to expand its services, and the African fintech Juicyway recently processed more than $1 billion in transactions powered by stablecoin technology.