TBC Bank Group is set to take full ownership of Payme, a digital payments provider in Uzbekistan, by acquiring the remaining 49% stake in the latter for $55.7m in cash.
In this connection, the Georgia-based TBC Bank Group has entered into a sales and purchase agreement (SPA) to acquire the stake from the founding shareholders in Inspired.
Inspired is the payments subsidiary of TBC Bank Group, operating under the Payme brand in Uzbekistan.
The deal values 100% of Payme at $113.6m.
Payme provides payment solutions to individuals and small businesses through its multi-vertical app. The solutions offered by it include bill payments, P2P transfers, QR payments, cross-border money remittances, e-commerce, repayments of loans, personal financial manager (PFM) services, and government services.
In the full year 2022, its total revenue and profit were $17.5m and $11.4m, respectively. The monthly active customers of the digital payments provider were 3.1 million at the end of March 2023.
TBC Bank Group CEO Vakhtang Butskhrikidze said: “This acquisition is in line with our previously outlined expansion strategy in Uzbekistan to create a leading fintech ecosystem.
“It will allow us to capture the strong synergy potential between the payments business and our digital bank, TBC UZ, by leveraging a large user base and a diverse product range.
“I strongly believe that our joint efforts in these two businesses will accelerate the achievement of our mid-term targets for our Uzbek operations: return of equity of at least 30%, monthly active users of 5 million, and 10-15% share of the Group’s net income.”
The Georgian banking group acquired the initial 51% stake in Payme in April 2019 for a price of $5.5m. The deal at that time valued 100% of the Uzbek digital payments platform at $10.8m.
TBC Bank Group at the time of the original deal, entered into an option to acquire the remaining 49% stake between the fourth and seventh anniversary of the date of closing of the transaction in 2019.
