TBC Bank Group PLC (TBCG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome, everyone, to today's TBC Second Quarter and First Half 2026 IFRS Results Call. My name is Seb, and I'll be the operator for your call today. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand you over to Andrew Keeley, Director of Investor Relations, to begin. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much, Seb, and hello, and welcome, everyone, to our second quarter results call. As usual, I'm joined on today's call by our Group CEO, Vakhtang Butskhrikidze. And I'm also joined by our new Group CFO, Guy Stevens. So welcome, Guy. As usual, the call will begin with a presentation, and then we'll move into Q&A. So with that, I'll hand over to Vakhtang. Thank you.

Thank you, Andrew, and hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. As Andrew mentioned, today's call is also an opportunity to welcome our new group CFO, Guy Stevens. We are delighted to have Guy joining the team and wish him every success in his new role. Now let's turn to our second quarter results. I'm pleased to present another strong quarter for TBC. Our profitability remains consistently high. In the second quarter, group's net profit reached GEL 386 million, up by 12% year-on-year with a strong return of equity of 23.6%. This is driven by a good momentum in revenues as total operating income increased by 10% year-on-year, while our focus on managing our cost base helped us to reduce the cost-to-income ratio by almost 2 percentage points quarter-on-quarter to 38.8%. Lending volumes remained robust with the loan portfolio growing by 12% year-on-year with Georgia in particular posting strong 14% year-on-year growth, while our Uzbekistan portfolio stabilized in the second quarter and is starting to return to growth. The continuous improvements we are making in our mobile banking services is bringing in more customers, particularly in Georgia, where we added over 50,000 digital MAU in the second quarter. In total, as a group, we now have 7.2 million digital MAU, a 6% decrease year-on-year. Our strong financial performance and the solid capital position have enabled us to declare a second quarter dividend of GEL 1.75 per share, bringing the total dividend for the first half of this year to GEL 3.5 per share. On the next slide, you can see the contributions made to the group by our different businesses with our Georgian core currently contributing the majority share both in terms of balance sheet and the profits. Now turning to Georgia. Georgia's economy continues to post excellent growth with real GDP growth accelerating to 7.9% in the first half of this year. While the conflict in the Middle East has made a minimal impact on the Georgian economy as a whole, it does continue to impact inflation, which increased to 5.8% in June. We expect inflation to remain at this level for the rest of the year, which suggests the National Bank of Georgia would keep interest rates on hold. Our real GDP growth outlook remains unchanged at 7.4%. We continue to strengthen our market-leading franchise in Georgia. Our gross loan portfolio grew by 14% year-on-year with particularly strong momentum in unsecured consumer loans, which have increased by 36% year-on-year, bringing us further gains in market shares. We are continuously refining our digital customer experience and product offerings in retail with cash secured loans and overdrafts launching our mobile application in the first half of this year, which will help us to support the strong growth in the coming quarters. And as you know, we remain the dominant banking the market in a number of key market segments. In affluent retail, we have over 50% market share in loans and customers with the number of concept customers breaking through 200,000 in the second quarter, up by 30% year-on-year. Meanwhile, in CIB, we are the leader with 44% market share in loans. On the next slide, you can see how our focus on the best-in-class digital financial services is bringing more customers to our platform. Digital MAU is up 19% and our DAU/MAU ratio has hit 50% as more customers interact with us on a daily basis. Evidence of the progress we have made can be seen as TBC being recognized by Euromoney as the Best Digital Bank in Georgia for 2026. We are also strengthening our retail banking team, and I'm delighted to welcome Sandro Rtveladze as the Deputy CEO, who will head up retail banking in Georgia. Sandro brings over a decade of leadership experience across retail and digital banking, including as Chairman of OTP Ipoteka Bank and previously CEO of TBC Uzbekistan. It's great to have him on the Board. I'd also like to point out that we are also receiving industry recognition for the AI initiatives that are part of our natural business development. We won several awards within not only in Georgia but also in CEE region. Our in-app chatbot, for example, now handles more than 6,500 customer calls a day, 60% of which are result without being based on to our center. While we are using AI across a wide range of business functions from mortgage property valuation, email, KYC checks to invoicing and contract workflows. Now let's look on at Uzbekistan. As in the case in Georgia, Uzbekistan economy continues to deliver remarkable growth with real GDP growth expanding by 8.5% in the first half of this year. Importantly, inflation has been declining over the past couple of years, reaching 6.4% in June and is expected to remain broadly stable in the second part of this year. Lower inflation supports the local currency, which is important as all of our businesses in Uzbek soon. Turning to our business. We are seeing strong dynamics across our core verticals. Our daily banking products continue to scale rapidly with salom card issuance more than doubling year-on-year to exceed 1.2 million, while Osmon credit card issuance has surpassed 210,000 and now credit cards accounted for 10% of our loan book, up from just 4% a year ago. At the same time, payment activity remains very strong. In the first half of this year, total payment volume reached GEL 3.2 billion, up by 54% year-on-year, supported by [ payments ] continued leadership position in the market. The growth of our payment franchise is feeding into the renewed growth in our fee and commission income, which rose 15% quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter. Now let's move on Slide 13. Our Uzbekistan loan book stabilized in the second quarter and is starting to return to growth. An increase in business, credit cards and POS lending now more than offset the decline in unsecured cash loans. Our deposit portfolio declined by 7% quarter-on-quarter as we optimized our liquidity position and decided to cut deposit costs. While we work starting to turn the corner in loan growth, we recognize that we will still face challenges in asset quality. NPLs and risk costs remain high as we continue to provision all the loan vintages as well as start to adapt the changes being introduced to the auto collection system. We continue to expand our product offerings in Uzbekistan. In the second quarter, we launched auto loans and secured SME lending, both important launches for our ambitious future growth. And I'm also pleased to announce that in late July, we completed the acquisition of OLX, the leading classified platform in Uzbekistan. This transaction further extend the reach of our digital ecosystem and creates a new opportunity to deepen customer engagement as TBC Uzbekistan plans to offer financial and payment services through OLX. I firmly believe that we are building a great long-term business in Uzbekistan and the strength of our digital platform has been recognized as the best digital bank in both Uzbekistan and the Central Asia by Euromoney. Thank you for your attention, and I will now hand over to Guy. Guy, please.

Thank you, Vakhtang, and thank you all for joining the call today. As new Group CFO, it's a real privilege to be presenting the group's results for the very first time. I'm very much looking forward to meeting our shareholders and the research community in the coming weeks and months. Turning now to our financial performance. The group delivered another solid set of results in the second quarter and first half of 2026. Starting with profitability. I'm pleased to report that in the second quarter, we continued to generate strong profitability. We achieved a net profit of GEL 386 million in the second quarter, up 12% year-on-year. This brought first half net profit of GEL 751 million, up 13% year-on-year. In Georgia, net profit was up 14% year-on-year for the quarter. Return on equity remains strong at 23.6% in the quarter and 23.5% in the first half, in line with our target of 23% plus 2026 to 2028. This is the 14th consecutive quarter where the group's ROE has exceeded 23%. Now let's deep dive into our profitability drivers. Revenues grew well in the second quarter. Total operating income increased by 10% year-on-year with first half operating income growing at a similar rate. This growth has primarily been driven by net interest income, which increased by 13% year-on-year in the quarter. I'm also pleased to report that we are seeing fee and commission income recovering in both Georgia and Uzbekistan with 14% quarter-on-quarter growth, driven by general business expansion in Georgia and strong payments growth in Uzbekistan. As you can see on the right-hand side, our margins remained resilient in the second quarter with our group net interest margin at 7.1%, slightly higher than in the first quarter. Georgia saw a second consecutive quarter of margin improvement, helped by growth in our unsecured retail loan book, the higher rate environment in Georgia and putting our strong liquidity position to work. Overall, net interest income in Georgia was up 19% year-on-year for the quarter. Meanwhile, in Uzbekistan, the NIM appears to have turned the corner, and we expect to improve gradually as the loan book returns to growth. Turning now to costs. On the cost side, our focus on efficiency is bearing fruit. Cost to income ratio fell by almost 2% in the quarter to 38.3%, which demonstrates the evidence of good cost control in both Georgia and Uzbekistan. Turning now to asset quality. As you can see on the right-hand side of the page, group cost of risk was 1.6% in the second quarter and 1.5% for the first half. This is consistent with our performance in 2025. Asset quality remains largely stable and robust in Georgia as reflected by a 70 bps cost of risk in the second quarter. However, on the left-hand side, the level of NPLs increased by 0.3% in the quarter to 3.3% at the group level. This was driven by an increase in the level of NPLs in Uzbekistan. This reflects three things. Number one is an extension of the write-off period that we have applied in Uzbekistan from 270 days to 360 days, given we are seeing material recoveries beyond the previous cutoff point of 270 days. Secondly, there is some ongoing deterioration in credit quality for all vintages. And thirdly, the contraction of the loan portfolio over the past year. This, of course, reduces the denominator of the ratio. I would note that our NPL coverage ratio, provision ratio in Uzbekistan remains solid at 114%. As for the outlook for the third quarter, we expect some upward pressure on the cost of risk in Uzbekistan, in part due to ongoing changes being implemented to the auto collection system for overdue loans. However, we expect to see a more positive trajectory from the fourth quarter of the year. Turning now to our balance sheet dynamics. Growth remained robust during the second quarter. Gross loans increased 12% year-on-year on a constant currency basis, led by a strong performance in Georgia, where loans increased by 14% year-on-year. And as Vakhtang mentioned earlier, the loan portfolio in Uzbekistan stabilized and is now showing signs of growth. Customer deposits increased strongly, rising by 15% year-on-year on a constant currency basis. The growth was broad-based across retail and CIB segments in Georgia and is supported by the strong customer acquisition outlined earlier by Vakhtang in Georgia. Turning now to our capital position. We continue to maintain robust levels of capital in both Georgia and Uzbekistan, comfortably above regulatory requirements. We have previously indicated a new regulatory framework was going to come into effect from the 1st of July for consumer loans in Uzbekistan. Today, we have learned that this has actually been paused and is not currently being implemented. We will keep investors informed as we learn of developments. But has the previously communicated change in the risk weight framework for consumer loans in Uzbekistan being implemented, we still would have maintained material buffers above the regulatory minimums for our capital position in Uzbekistan, which brings me to capital returns. The group's strong profitability and capital generation continue to support attractive shareholder returns. As Vakhtang mentioned earlier, the Board has declared a quarterly dividend of GEL 1.75 per share for the second quarter. This brings total first half dividends to GEL 3.5 per share, which is up 8% year-on-year. Finally, I'd like to close today's presentation by summing up the key takeaways for the first half of 2026. TBC maintained strong growth and profitability in the first half of the year with a 23.5% return on equity. This sets us up well for the second half of the year and keeps us on track for our financial targets. In Georgia, strong customer acquisition and engagement is helping drive mid-teen loan and deposit growth. In Uzbekistan, we are delivering on the recalibration of our business. We're seeing signs that the loan portfolio has stabilized and is beginning to return to growth, while momentum across payments, cards and the ecosystem remains strong, although we do recognize the ongoing challenges on asset quality. And then finally, our strong capital position continues to support both future growth of the business and attractive returns for our shareholders. Thank you for your attention. And at this point, we will now be happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] We have a few questions with raised hands at the moment. So let's go ahead with the first one from Dmitry Vlasov.

My first one would be on NIM in Uzbekistan. So what level of NIM expansion do you basically expect in Uzbekistan, given that you gradually diversify away from higher-margin cash loans? That's the first question. And the second question is on Georgia fees and commission. So if this interchange fees cap would be implemented at some point, what sort of impact would you expect to have on your fees and commission income? Yes, that's it for now. And maybe I'll ask follow-up.

Thank you, Dmitry. So first of all, on our Uzbekistan NIM, as I said, I mean, we're seeing signs that the NIM has turned the corner. Given what has happened on the asset side of the balance sheet and the contraction of the portfolio, we have had an excess liquidity position. And that's something that we have focused on. Now that the portfolio is returning to growth, we expect to see that's going to help in terms of our NIM going forward. So we are more optimistic on the outlook for our NIM. I think in terms of the situation in Georgia, and I'll let Vakhtang to expand on this. I think at the current time, there is no kind of certainty that there is going to be a change to the interchange fees, but I'll let Vakhtang expand on that.

Thank you, Dmitry. And to answer the question about the commission income for Georgia. So there are some kind of discussions going on, but I want to remember there was such a case two years ago, three years ago. So I think we are ready for any kind of scenario. But for us, the base scenario that next year, we are planning to have a growth in fee and commission income. If the situation will go worse on the base scenario, probably will be growth, but digital numbers. But otherwise, we are forecasting growth to be around.

Next up is Rae from Peel Hunt.

Thanks for the additional detail you provided around the increase in provisions in the Uzbekistan business. Can you give a bit more detail about how you see the asset quality evolving here into H2 and beyond? And then secondly, on Georgian NIM, to see the expansion in Q2, obviously helped by the increase in base rates. But again, how do you see the NIM in Georgia evolving from here into the second half and beyond?

So I think on asset quality in Uzbekistan, I think it probably makes sense to give a little bit more kind of color to what we saw in the second quarter. So as I mentioned, the increase in NPLs was driven by three factors. One was the change in the write-off policy, and that was driven by us actually recovering material amounts of loans post the 270-day cut I mentioned the impact of the portfolio in terms of the portfolio being 10% lower as at the 30th of June relative to year-end. So that obviously changes the denominator. But to come specifically to your question in terms of how we see the outlook, we did see a deterioration in -- or a seasoning of older vintages, vintage of loans, loans that are originated 12 to 18 months ago. So that had some impact in terms of the cost of risk. Where does it kind of take us from the third quarter? I think we will continue to see those older vintages come through in terms of seasoning. But we also have the developments around progressive changes in auto collections for overdue loans, which is effectively a sort of kind of similar to sort of a direct debit if someone doesn't pay the loan, you can automatically collect through the card payment system. But those have been well signaled in terms of the potential changes. As of now, there isn't clarity on that, but we have prepared well. We have been working on our collections. But where this all kind of means -- what it all means in terms of where we're heading in terms of the cost of risk for the third quarter, we do expect an increase in the cost of risk in Uzbekistan, taking us to low mid-teens. I think going in then into the fourth quarter of the year, we do see a more positive trajectory. So that's on the asset quality in Uzbekistan. I think in Georgia, I think in terms of where we've seen the NIM, there has been two consecutive quarters of improvement. Drivers of that, I think I outlined, we've been helped by our liquidity position. You'll see that our net loans as a proportion of assets has increased as we've deployed liquidity, which has helped us. But also in terms of the NIM, we've been helped by the very strong growth of our retail business. As Vakhtang mentioned, our unsecured retail book has grown very, very significantly, 36% up year-on-year. So that has been a positive on NIM. So I think in terms of the outlook, from where we go from here, I think the NIM is certainly stable. There is potential upside to it. But I think we're kind of pleased with what we have achieved in Georgia and we sort of expect more of the same. But in a sense, the messaging would be that as we continue to see retail grow, we should be seeing that flow through into the NIM.

Next, we have a question from Rahim from Cavendish.

The first was just in terms of the Georgian business. Obviously, delivery continues to go very well there and consistent and credit growth is strong. I was just wondering if you saw any particular areas that are doing particularly well and anything that you'd like to kind of draw out in terms of the focus there? And then on Uzbekistan, congrats for getting the OLX deal completed. Just will be useful to hear your views on where the long-term sources of value are from that transaction and how we should try and monitor the success of that going forward?

I will try to answer this question about Georgia. So as we mentioned in our presentation, we have a very strong growth, 14%, and that growth will be continued in the second part of this year. But key priority for us, as Guy and also I mentioned in the presentation, to increase retail business because we see very comfortable growth in CIB. We have more than 44% market share. We have a comfortable level of market share in SME. And now our priority in Georgia to grow up faster our mass retail and retail business and especially we are doing well. As we mentioned, we increased number of our monthly users by 50,000, and we have much more ambitions to do better in the second part of this year. On the OLX, that was strategic move from our side. This is very important because as we showed in our presentation, monthly users of OLX today is more than 5 million. It's a good opportunity for us to increase leads for our retail customers in Uzbekistan, plus in addition, as you know, we are growing our business in micro and SME and we believe that is a good opportunity for us for OLX to bring more leads to our TBC Uzbekistan Bank and to grow our loan portfolio and also payments.

Next up, we've got a question from Dan Mikhaylov.

Congratulations on the results. Two quick questions on Uzbekistan. The first one is, we saw a sequential improvement in loans in the second quarter of '26. What kind of loans growth should we expect in Q3 and Q4 to get us to a certain year-end number now that we're back in positive territory? And my second question is a follow-up on the OLX -- the earlier question on OLX. Could you elaborate on what kind of products you expect to be offering through that deal? Just trying to understand better how it classifies business ties into the lending side of your business.

Okay. I will take the first part of that and I'll ask Vakhtang to the second part. So I think in Uzbekistan, I mean, the -- as I said, portfolio down relative to year-end, but we did see growth in the second quarter, 0.4%. We continued as managed to see a contraction in our instant cash loan business as planned. But we did start to see nice growth coming through or continued growth coming through on the business loan side, buy now, pay later, credit cards, and we expect that trend to continue. In terms of the outlook for the year, I think given the profile of the business and given what we have seen in the past, we always expect to see volume growth to be strong in the fourth quarter of the year. So I think where we are hoping to land up is when we get to the end of '26, we will see a portfolio that will be of the same size or have increased relative to the end of the year 2025. So strong growth coming through towards the end of the year so that we actually -- when we will reach the end of the year, we won't see the year-on-year contraction in the portfolio in Uzbekistan.