JSC TBC Digital, expanding its digital ecosystem in the Uzbek financial market, has published its consolidated financial statements for 2025. According to the report, the group's total assets expanded by nearly 49% over the year, from UZS 10.42 trillion to UZS 15.51 trillion. However, a sharp rise in credit risks and expected credit loss provisions, driven by aggressive lending, significantly decelerated net profit growth. The company reported a net profit of UZS 586.2 billion for the reporting period. This represents a 13.7% increase compared to UZS 515.6 billion in the previous year. With revenue from loans and payment commissions nearly doubling, this moderate profit growth reflects the mounting pressure on overall credit quality.
Loan Portfolio: Growth Rates and Data Crisis
The group's gross loans and advances to customers, including finance leases, increased from UZS 8.08 trillion to UZS 11.38 trillion, posting a 40.9% growth. Net of provisions, the loan portfolio stood at UZS 10.49 trillion against UZS 7.70 trillion in 2024. Expected credit losses (ECL) surged by 138.0%, reaching UZS 895.7 billion. While net interest income saw a 76.0% growth to UZS 2.54 trillion, credit provisioning costs in the profit and loss statement more than tripled, jumping from UZS 358.3 billion to UZS 1.098 trillion (+206.5%). Net fee and commission income rose by 45.7% to UZS 766.7 billion.
Customer accounts (deposits) expanded by 34.0% to UZS 6.50 trillion, while other borrowed funds soared by 137.2% to UZS 4.58 trillion. Despite the expanding lending volumes, deteriorating asset quality emerged as a primary risk. A key driver was a market-wide data integrity failure in borrower income verification systems during the first quarter of 2025. Flaws in third-party data sources allowed borrowers to overstate their income, forcing the group to write off a pre-tax direct loss of UZS 114.4 billion.
By year-end, overdue and irrecoverable consumer loans amounting to UZS 509.9 billion were entirely written off the balance sheet. Furthermore, following the Central Bank's macroprudential limits on microfinance risks effective July 24, 2025 (capping microloans at 25% of a bank's portfolio), TBC Bank reclassified a significant portion of loans to self-employed individuals into the MSME segment. Consequently, the MSME portfolio reached UZS 1.06 trillion, bringing the total corporate loan portfolio to UZS 1.60 trillion.
Ecosystem Driver: Payme and Payment Commissions
The group's fee and commission income was largely sustained by the Payme platform. Net fee and commission income increased by 45.7% to UZS 766.7 billion. P2P transfers dominated this segment: although gross P2P receipts reached UZS 628.9 billion, transaction costs (UZS 317.7 billion) are heavily squeezing margins in this direction.
Revenue from transaction monitoring services spiked from UZS 46.4 billion to UZS 132.1 billion. In the operational expense structure, staff costs rose from UZS 316.7 billion to UZS 477.5 billion. Credit scoring expenses increased from UZS 125.7 billion to UZS 200.7 billion, while IT services reached UZS 206.9 billion. This highlights the high cost of scaling digital infrastructure.
Funding Sources and Liquidity Risks
Notably, to sustain its lending momentum, TBC Digital relied more heavily on international and institutional borrowings than on traditional customer deposits. While customer accounts grew by 34.0% to UZS 6.50 trillion (93.4% being retail deposits), other borrowed funds surged by 137.2% from UZS 1.93 trillion to UZS 4.58 trillion.
The group secured large UZS-indexed credit lines from international financial institutions such as FMO, responsAbility, BlueOrchard, and its parent company, TBC Bank Group PLC. At year-end, debt obligations to TBC PLC amounted to USD 166.9 million (of which UZS 1.6 trillion is fixed in local currency). The short-term nature of these financial obligations impacted liquidity metrics.
The Central Bank's current liquidity ratio plummeted from 177% in 2024 to 43% by the end of 2025. Although the instant liquidity ratio remained comfortably above the regulatory minimum at 186%, the sharp decline in N3 indicates a substantially heavier short-term debt burden.
Tax Exemption Removal and 2026 Outlook
The most significant strategic shift for the group occurred in the post-reporting period. Effective April 1, 2026, payment organizations and systems lost their IT Park residency benefits. Previously, Payme was fully exempt from corporate income tax, paying only a 1% levy to the IT Park. This exemption saved the group UZS 70.5 billion in taxes in 2025 and UZS 49.3 billion in 2024. The loss of this privilege will directly increase the group's future tax burden.
To mitigate the impact, management executed a spin-off in March 2026, creating a subsidiary, TBC Tech, to retain IT operations under the IT Park residency status. Additionally, in 2026, Payme declared and paid dividends of UZS 262.2 billion, while the parent company raised an additional UZS 1.03 trillion to support microfinance and leasing operations, channeling the funds to subsidiaries at a 23.5% interest rate.
