TBC Celebrates 25th Anniversary and Introduces its New HQ Office Design
TBC Bank held a massive 25th year celebration at the bank’s head office on Marjanishvili Street yesterday; which included a look back at its history, all through its ups and downs and achievements from 1992, the year of TBC Bank’s foundation, a business that as often referred to as being started from $500, and going on to transform itself into the leading financial institution both in Georgia and in the region. Today, TBC Banks capital amounts to almost 2 billion GEL, it has 7000 employees and more than 2 million clients, 38.6% of deposit market shares, and 7.7 billion credit portfolios.
In 2014, TBC Bank entered the London Stock Exchange, subsequently moving to London Stock Exchange Premium Listing in 2016. TBC merged with Bank Republic the same year, enabling them to become number one in all banking segments on the market; and achieving inclusion in the FTSE 250 index in 2017. These are among some of the milestones of TBC Bank’s recent history.
As the bank’s top management members debriefed on the projects realized all through the TBC Bank’s history, from introducing the first ever Georgian Chat Bot, Ti–Bot, making distance banking services much more accessible, to the Business Awards launched in 2016, with the aim to assist Georgian businesses; or the Startup platform, promoting the entrepreneurial spirit, the #წერექართულად initiative, Saba literature awards and an online electronic bookshop: www. saba.com.ge, or the TBC Art gallery that regularly features Georgian artists, just recently exhibiting works of Petre Otskheli; to the extensive CSR activities the bank has successfully ran all through these years to support projects in the arts, culture, sports and more, notably launching its online platform www.statusdonates.ge last year.
“We started in 1992, and today we’d like to share what we managed to achieve in these 25 years. TBC Bank follows the pulse of the country and the bank’s success fully depends on that of Georgia,” Mamuka Khazaradze, Chairman of the Bank’s Supervisory Board, said as he spoke at the event.
“We’ve attracted and put 2 billion USD in to the Georgian economy during these 25 years- this is an unprecedented number. Concerning business development, almost 3. 3 billion USD was invested in the Georgian economy during the 25-year period.
We’re very proud that we’ve been involved in supporting and assisting the new Georgian businesses to be established,” he stated.
“From the moment we started out, our philosophy relied on being totally transparent as an institution, and that was one of the defining reasons of our success,” Mamuka Khazaradze said, as he shared his view on how TBC Bank managed to grow, develop and retain its success along the way.
“The history of TBC Bank is extremely closely connected with the history of our country, sharing its hardships, its development; and for me, the success of TBC Bank lays in several factors; first, we had decided that TBC would be open to anyone, from investors to other individuals willing to do business in Georgia, and that’s how we managed to attract the first credit lines, and first investors to Georgia from World Bank, to German Development Bank, the EBRD and the FMO. Another factor is that top professionals are working at TBC Bank, and, of course the possibility to be a part of the world’s leading stock exchange market,” Badri Japaridze, Vice Chairman of the Supervisory Board, who then took on the stage, said.
“TBC Bank is the largest financial institution in the Caucasus, and we want to meet the challenges of the 21st century, while our country is building a free economy. Today, 90% of our clients receive our banking services remotely, without even coming to our branches, which was difficult to imagine some 10-15 years ago; all because of the technological innovations TBC has launched,” Vakhtang Butskhrikidze, TBC Bank’s CEO said, talking about TBC’s mobile bank and a Ti-Bot applications and a special application designed especially for small and medium size businesses, enabling micros and small and medium business owners to receive bank loans without any paperwork needed, just answering some of the questions online. Vakhtang Butskhrikidze also noted the support TBC provides to startups, giving 27 million GEL to startup companies in one year alone.
The second part of TBC Bank’s 25th year celebration event continued with introducing the Bank’s new headquarter office design “Tbilisi Business Center”, to be situated in the Lisi lake area, said to become one of the first ecological urban infrastructures, with an energy efficient and ecology-friendly concept, uniting modern architecture with innovative technologies. The idea of the office design was inspired by the Shatili complex in Georgia.
“UN Studio, one of the leading architectural agencies in the world, have been working on the design on the Tbilisi Business Center. This will not just be an office space, but a huge infrastructural area, with a space for B2B meetings, conference halls and restaurants. On an area of 20 hectares, near the Lisi lake territory, we will be building a brand-new business complex. We’ve invited well-known Spanish development company TYPSA for the project, they have previously worked on the Santander City Group Complex in Madrid, Spain,” Mamuka Khzaradze pointed out.
“As we mulled over the architectural concept of the building, we were thinking about what TBC means, we thought about the people, future, the environment in which we all live, and of course technology,” Frans Van Vuure, architect from UN Studio said, explaining the concept of the Tbilisi Business Center, which is to be completed by 2021.
As the meeting came to a close, Kakha Kaladze, Tbilisi Mayor, took to the stage, congratulating TBC Bank on its 25th anniversary.
“TBC Bank grew hand in hand with the country, and I’m delighted it became such a successful, leading financial institution. We’ve initiated and implemented many projects jointly in the energy sector, during the time when I was in the position of the Minister of Energy,” Kakha Kaladze noted, going on to say that Tbilisi needs more projects like the upcoming Tbilisi Business Center and that the Tbilisi Municipality is open and ready to cooperate for the city development.
By Nino Gugunishvili