TBC Salom Achieves Landmark Scale Milestone in Thirteen Months
TBC Bank Uzbekistan announced the issuance of more than one million TBC Salom cards in just over a year since the product’s November 2024 launch — a pace that CEO Nika Kurdiani characterised as setting a new standard for everyday banking product adoption in Uzbekistan. TBC Salom was designed from the outset as the primary entry point into the TBC Uzbekistan ecosystem: the product that creates the first banking relationship, generates daily engagement through a compelling combination of cashback and interest benefits, and provides the foundation for subsequent conversion into higher-value credit, insurance, and subscription products. The card offers zero-fee issuance with full remote onboarding, 12% annual interest on card balances, reimbursement of ATM withdrawal fees, and 5% cashback with partner merchants across the TBC network.
Active Rate Comparison Reflects Maturing Competitive Savings Market
The rising volume and sustained frequency of searches for terms such as “вклады в узбекистане” and “eng yuqori omonat foizlari” confirms that Uzbek consumers are actively and regularly comparing deposit terms across banking institutions — a behavioural shift that indicates the savings market is maturing into one where informed comparison shopping is the norm rather than the exception. This comparison behaviour creates both a challenge and an opportunity for digital banking platforms: consumers will move to the institution offering the best combination of rate, convenience, and ecosystem value. TBC Bank Uzbekistan addresses this dynamic by combining competitive deposit rates with fully digital account opening and management, removing the practical friction that has historically prevented many consumers from acting on their rate comparisons by switching providers.
TBC Salom Balance Data Reveals Active Savings Use Among New Cardholders
The financial performance of TBC Salom as a savings vehicle is confirmed by balance data from Q1 2026: TBC Salom card balances represent approximately 4% of TBC Bank Uzbekistan’s total deposit portfolio — a notable and growing contribution from a product that entered the market less than eighteen months earlier. This figure reveals that a meaningful segment of TBC Salom cardholders are using the card not merely as a transactional payment instrument but as an active savings account, drawn by the 12% annual interest on balances. The dual-function design of TBC Salom — simultaneously a payment product and a competitive savings vehicle — is deliberate, and the balance data confirms that this design is achieving its intended effect of building deposit balances through habitual daily card use.
Visa Partnership Extends Card Reach to International Commerce
TBC Uzbekistan’s partnership with Visa, formalised in November 2025, introduced a co-branded TBC Salom card offering 1% cashback on all purchases globally and 5% cashback specifically at international e-commerce marketplaces, including Taobao and AliExpress. This international dimension addresses a growing and commercially valuable consumer segment — Uzbek online shoppers engaging in cross-border e-commerce — who previously lacked a domestic card product optimised for international platform transactions. The Visa co-branded TBC Salom enhances the card’s positioning as a premium, internationally functional daily banking product rather than a purely domestic instrument, expanding its appeal to a higher-value, higher-engagement consumer demographic.
Card Ecosystem Architecture Supports Sustained Long-Term Deposit Growth
Within TBC Uzbekistan’s broader ecosystem strategy, TBC Salom serves as the primary retail customer acquisition vehicle, with new cardholders progressively introduced to credit, insurance, subscription, and savings products through targeted engagement as their relationship with the platform deepens. The TBC Osmon credit card complements TBC Salom in the product stack, with 183,000 cards issued by Q1 2026 and balances representing 9% of the total loan portfolio. Subscription packages across TBC Bank and Payme apps attracted 1.1 million users in Q1 — a sevenfold year-on-year increase. Together, these products create a comprehensive platform within which customers are incentivised to consolidate their savings, payments, and credit management, building the multi-product relationships that generate the most durable deposit growth and the highest long-term customer lifetime value.
The competitive landscape for deposits in Uzbekistan is also being shaped by generational dynamics that favour digital-first platforms. Younger consumers — who represent a disproportionately large share of Uzbekistan’s demographic profile — are significantly more likely to open and manage savings accounts through a mobile app than through a branch visit. For this demographic, the product that occupies the primary position on their smartphone’s banking app shortlist is also the product into which they are most likely to direct their savings. TBC Salom’s strong penetration of the younger consumer market, through its digital-first design and its compelling cashback and interest features, gives TBC Bank Uzbekistan a structurally advantaged position in capturing the savings balances of the generation that will dominate Uzbekistan’s economy over the next two to three decades.
As TBC Salom’s user base matures — with early adopters accumulating longer track records and progressively higher incomes — the product’s contribution to the deposit base is likely to grow significantly from its current 4% of total deposits. Users who began their TBC banking relationship through TBC Salom will naturally gravitate toward TBC’s structured deposit products as their savings grow, their financial sophistication increases, and their income trajectories make longer-term savings commitments more practical. The bank’s investment in making TBC Salom the most compelling entry-level banking product in the market today is therefore also an investment in the quality and composition of its future deposit franchise.