TBC Uzbekistan's Payroll Play Turns 30K Businesses Into a Banking Funnel

The payroll pipeline doubles as an acquisition channel for TBC's retail banking network. Employees whose companies use the module can open a TBC Salom debit account entirely online through the main TBC UZ mobile app, with no paper forms. Once active, those accounts earn interest on balances, accumulate cashback on purchases, and offer commission-free peer-to-peer transfers. Cash deposits and withdrawals also carry rebates.

TBC Business already includes SME lending programs and a dedicated mobile app for corporate treasury workflows. The company strengthened the commercial stack last year with the acquisition of BILLZ, a retail management software platform that ties inventory analytics to business cash flows.

TBC Uzbekistan's broader numbers give the payroll play some weight. The lender reported nearly 6 million monthly active users, driven partly by its AI assistant Lola. It reached profitability two years after launch and was named by CNBC and Statista as a top international fintech. The payroll feature turns those consumer-side strengths into a corporate onboarding funnel, one that locks in both the business and its employees on the same banking stack.

For Uzbekistan's SMEs, the upgrade removes a real friction point. Payroll in emerging markets has long been constrained by central bank operating hours, freezing capital over weekends and holidays. TBC's 24/7 processing eliminates that window. The question now is how fast the 30,000-business base adopts the new module, and whether the employee onboarding loop accelerates TBC's consumer growth beyond its current MAU run rate.