TBC Bank secures ~$74M in trade finance funding with ADB support
What's the deal? TBC Bank, Georgia's largest lender by trade finance market share, has attracted roughly GEL 200M (about $74M) in foreign-currency funding from J.P. Morgan and several European commercial banks. The deal was arranged under the Asian Development BankDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →'s (ADB) Trade Finance Program.
The funding will help Georgian companies access trade finance to expand import and export operations with greater flexibility and reduced risk. TBC says it serves more than 1,000 companies and holds a 45% market share in trade finance in Georgia.
"Securing financial resources from some of the world's leading financial institutions is a strong vote of confidence in TBC and its long-term strategy," said Tamar Khizanishvili, director of trade finance and factoring at TBC.
Why now? TBC and ADB have partnered since 2011, but the deal comes as developing-market banks increasingly lean on multilateral programmes to unlock liquidity. ADB's Trade and Supply Chain Finance Program has supported more than $74B in transactions since 2009, working through a network of over 200 partner banks worldwide.
Jan Sutken, head of ADB's trade and supply chain finance programme, said the partnership aims to "strengthen trade flows, expand access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises, and enhance supply chain resilience across developing markets."
What could go wrong? The funding is denominated in foreign currency, which exposes Georgian borrowers to exchange-rate risk if the lari weakens. Georgia's small, open economy is also vulnerable to regional geopolitical shocks that could disrupt the very trade corridors this financing is meant to support.
The signal: With ADB's Trade and Supply Chain Finance Program having facilitated more than $74B in transactions since 2009, the programme has become a vital bridge between global capital and emerging-market lenders that lack direct access to deep liquidity pools. TBC Bank's 45% market share in Georgian trade finance makes it the natural conduit for that capital in the South Caucasus — and for J.P. Morgan and the European banks involved, the ADB guarantee structure de-risks exposure to a frontier market they might otherwise avoid.
Read more: georgiatoday.ge
