Georgia has nineteen second-tier banks, and TBC together with Bank of Georgia hold roughly 76% of sector assets. The other seventeen split what is left, which is why the National Bank of Georgia built a separate licensing framework for digital banks several years ago — with a phased path to a full licence and a mandatory supervised test period. Hashbank was the first to walk that path all the way through, and today it operates as a commercial bank with no branches at all.
For a Russian-speaking client with an international structure, the bank matters for three reasons. The account opens remotely on a foreign passport, with no trip to Tbilisi and no Georgian residence permit. Crypto trading lives inside the same app — an unusual configuration for a fully licensed bank. And cross-border transfer pricing is noticeably softer than at the Georgian big two. Below we unpack what sits behind that, and where the limits begin.
Background
JSC Hash Bank received its banking licence from the National Bank of Georgia on 14 November 2023, registration ID 405555359. It was issued under a dedicated NBG framework — the digital bank licensing principles, which describe a three-stage transition to a full licence, require the applicant to meet technological criteria (API architecture, digital client identification, service delivered mainly through digital channels), and demand a standalone business termination plan.
The bank then spent ≈10.5 months in supervised test mode: real banking activity was restricted while the regulator watched the business model and its risks. NBG granted permission to operate in full on 20 September 2024, lifting restrictions in phases and reserving the right to change the list of permitted operations along the way.
The shareholder structure is disclosed in the bank's Pillar 3 reporting. Common shares: Volodymyr Nosov — 50%, Sulkhan Papashvili — 30.5%, Lasha Papashvili — 19.5%; the preference shares belong entirely to Nana Keburia. Nosov founded the WhiteBIT crypto exchange, and that link defines the bank's product profile. The management board is chaired by Goga Chanadiri.
Scale is still modest. For full-year 2025, assets stood at ≈72m GEL after growth of over 130% year on year, the net loss came to ≈10.5m GEL, market share was ≈0.07%, and the bank ranked sixteenth among Georgian banks. In its first five months after full launch it signed over 40,000 verified customers, and in 2026 it took the title of Best New Digital Bank Georgia from Global Banking and Finance Review.
Products and pricing
Everything below is as of August 2026, and part of the numbers are promotional and expire on 31 August.
Account. Multi-currency GEL/USD/EUR under a single IBAN; opening, maintenance and closing are free. A client may hold one active account, and the IBAN appears in the app immediately after verification. Topping up with an international card costs 1% of the amount, and cash is accepted through Oppa terminals.
Cards. Hashcard is Visa: the digital card is issued instantly and connects to Apple Pay and Google Pay right away, while plastic is delivered free anywhere in Georgia within 3–5 working days. Issuance, monthly service and delivery are free, and you can hold up to five digital and three physical cards at once. Cash withdrawal works at any ATM accepting Visa worldwide, with the acquirer charging its own fee.
Transfers. A domestic card-to-card transfer costs 1 GEL, and a GEL transfer to another bank clears the same business day when sent before 17:30. SEPA and SEPA Instant carry a flat 5 EUR with limits of 5,000 EUR on instant and 30,000 EUR on standard; reversing an incoming SEPA costs 2 EUR. SWIFT costs 30 USD or EUR for a guaranteed transfer (the beneficiary receives exactly what you sent) and 15 for the standard one, where correspondents take their cut.
Mastercard Move is a separate story: person-to-person transfers in 21 currencies to roughly 60 countries, with limits of 25,000 USD per transaction and 125,000 USD per month. The base tariff is 20 EUR to the USA and Egypt and 5 EUR elsewhere; until 31 August 2026 the first 2,000 transactions go at zero fee. Sending to a third-party Visa or Mastercard card via Visa Direct and Mastercard Send costs 1%.
Conversion. Currency exchange carries no commission — the bank earns on the spread. On 11 August 2026 USD stood at 2.6175 bid and 2.6205 ask, EUR at 3.0160 and 3.0280, GBP at 3.5220 and 3.5430. That is a spread of about 0.11% on the dollar and closer to 0.6% on sterling.
Crypto. The app carries up to 120 assets, and buying, selling and swapping are commission-free; crypto can be sent to another bank customer by phone number. Auto-invest runs on a schedule, and storage is cold with multisig via a licensed VASP partner. No separate verification is required for crypto operations.
Cashback. The hashback programme credits 2% in Bitcoin on purchases from 5 GEL with a ceiling of 150 GEL a month — running until 31 August 2026, after which the rate settles at a permanent 0.5%. Excluded are cash withdrawals, transfers of any kind, conversion, payments to financial institutions, gambling, wallet and mobile top-ups, and securities transactions.
Lending. The digital loan runs up to 80,000 GEL over 2–48 months, with a nominal rate from 15% and an effective rate from 16% in lari, no mandatory insurance, and a disbursement fee zeroed out until 31 August. The borrower test is strict: Georgian citizenship or a Georgian residence permit, at least 18 at drawdown and no more than 65 at maturity.
Deposits. Three lines. DUO is a hybrid demand product: interest accrues monthly, partly on the month's minimum balance and partly on the end-of-day balance, and you can withdraw at any time. Standard Term starts at 100 GEL/USD/EUR for 3–24 months, with early closure possible at a recalculated lower rate. Fixed runs from 100 units of currency for up to 60 months at the highest rate, with no early exit. Interest can be taken upfront, monthly or at maturity; the bank's GEL calculator shows a nominal 10.00% and an effective 10.50%.
Competitive landscape
There are two direct peers in the country. Pave Bank Georgia targets business and tokenised settlement and stays out of retail entirely. Paysera Bank Georgia grew out of the Lithuanian EMI group and brings European payment rails with it. All three together are a rounding error against a sector holding 108bn GEL in assets.
Comparison with TBC and Bank of Georgia is fairer along two axes. On pricing Hashbank wins: the big two charge for card packages, price SWIFT higher, and run wider FX spreads. On resilience and product depth it loses: the large banks have mortgages, brokerage, private banking arms, branch networks, and balance sheets where 50,000 GEL of insurance cover stops being the defining number.
There is a third axis, and in Tbilisi it gets discussed more than the other two. Large Georgian banks have spent two years methodically tightening compliance for non-residents, and refusals have become routine: they ask for source of funds, purpose of account, sometimes a Georgian SIM and an in-person visit. Against that backdrop Hashbank looks like a door that opens more easily — with the caveats set out below. We covered the wider picture in our review of neobanks and in our roundup of crypto-friendly jurisdictions.
What it means for the client
Onboarding is the most valuable thing here. Anyone over 18 can open the account and citizenship is irrelevant; a foreigner needs an international passport or a Georgian residence permit. Verification runs on photo identification in the app, no trip to Georgia is required, and the multi-currency account is created automatically at the moment of registration.
None of that cancels compliance. Citizenship inside a sanctioned perimeter closes the door automatically, and for everyone else the bank runs standard KYC covering source of funds and purpose of account. A Russian or Belarusian passport creates no formal bar, though it raises the odds of follow-up questions and of ongoing transaction monitoring — here Hashbank lives by the same FATF rules as the rest of the Georgian market.
Protection of funds is simple and comes with a clear ceiling. The bank participates in Georgia's deposit insurance system, and the Deposit Insurance Agency reimburses up to 50,000 GEL per depositor — roughly 19 thousand dollars at the August 2026 rate. Cover extends to individuals regardless of residency.
From that follows the working logic for a wealthy client. Hashbank is good as an operational wallet: a card with no subscription, cheap SEPA, instant conversion, crypto in the same interface, access from anywhere. Holding a sum that dwarfs the insurance limit at a bank running a loss on a 72m GEL balance sheet is a decision to take with open eyes. Core money is better left where we usually point clients among banks, with Hashbank serving as a second circuit.
Two more details surface in practice. Credit products are unavailable to non-residents — a Georgian passport or residence permit is required. And only one active account is permitted, so schemes that split flows inside the bank will not assemble.
Under the hood
If you are looking at this case as someone building their own fintech, the licensing route is the interesting part. NBG does not hand a digital bank a full licence up front: first it assesses how innovative the business model is and whether it satisfies banking legislation, then the bank operates inside a test perimeter, and only after that are restrictions lifted in stages. Minimum regulatory capital may be built up gradually, which dramatically lowers the entry threshold.
The prudential frame itself is ordinary, Basel III in the Georgian edition: CET1 from 4.5%, Tier 1 from 6%, total regulatory capital from 8%, plus a 2.5% conservation buffer and the Pillar 2 buffers — currency-induced credit risk, concentration, net stress test and GRAPE. The regime grants no substantive relief; it stretches the timetable.
The stack is assembled from partner components rather than written from scratch. The card side runs on Visa with a parallel Mastercard connection, and international transfers use four independent channels (SEPA, Mastercard Move, Visa Direct and Mastercard Send, and SWIFT through the correspondent network). Incoming SEPA arrives via a correspondent account in Lithuania held in the name of Hash Bank JSC, which is typical for a bank outside the EU. Crypto is pushed out to a licensed VASP partner, and that is the right construction: the bank avoids taking custody risk directly.
The economics are classic for a growth stage. The 2025 loss came close to half of assets, with ROA near minus 20%. Monetisation rests on FX spread, a loan book priced at 15–16% and card interchange, while acquisition runs on aggressive promotions — 2% in Bitcoin, zero commissions, free transfers. Campaigns like that do verify the customer base, but they push payback to the right.
The real trap in this regime is the reputational contour around shareholders. NBG works the technology and capital track by regulation, while the fit-and-proper question on beneficial owners became public before operations even started. Anyone planning their own bank in Georgia should budget that block as a distinct workstream with answers ready for the regulator and the press, rather than as a formality.
Regulation and status
Hashbank is a full commercial bank supervised by NBG, with mandatory Pillar 3 disclosure, audit and participation in the deposit insurance system. Georgian law has no separate “digital licence”: the framework describes the entry procedure, and the supervisory status at the end of it is the same as TBC's.
The crypto segment is regulated in parallel. Virtual asset operations in Georgia require VASP registration with the National Bank, the regulator maintains the register, and the bank works through a licensed partner. The WhiteBIT group, to which the principal shareholder belongs, obtained a brokerage licence in Georgia in 2026 for regulated derivatives — so the linkage is being built inside the local perimeter rather than offshore.
On the founder due diligence episode, the regulator's position is on the public record. In November 2023 part of the media and several politicians claimed NBG had insufficiently vetted the founders. The regulator responded officially: the decision was taken in strict compliance with national legislation and international practice with respect to both founders, and none of the international financial sanctions Georgia has aligned with, including those of the USA, EU and UK, had been imposed on either of them. The full set of current agreements and tariffs is published in the bank's documents section.
FAQ
Do I need to travel to Georgia to open the account?
No. Registration and verification happen entirely in the app: a form, phone and email confirmation by one-time code, and photo identification. The multi-currency GEL/USD/EUR account is created automatically, and the physical card is couriered within Georgia.
Which documents does the bank accept from a foreigner?
One document is enough: an international (travel) passport or a residence permit issued in Georgia. The age threshold is 18. The bank still reserves the right to request confirmation of source of funds and purpose of account under standard KYC.
Can a non-resident take a loan or open a deposit here?
Deposits — yes, all three lines are available to foreign citizens aged 18 and over. Loans — no: the digital loan of up to 80,000 GEL goes only to Georgian citizens and holders of a Georgian residence permit, with repayment completed by age 65.
What does an international transfer cost?
As of August 2026: SEPA and SEPA Instant — a flat 5 EUR; SWIFT — 15 USD/EUR standard and 30 guaranteed; transfer to a third-party card — 1% of the amount. Mastercard Move between individuals costs 5 EUR at base tariff (20 EUR to the USA and Egypt), but runs free until 31 August 2026 for the first 2,000 transactions.
How protected are the money in the account and the crypto assets?
Fiat balances are covered by the Georgian deposit insurance system up to 50,000 GEL per depositor, non-residents included. Crypto assets fall outside insurance: they are held through a licensed VASP partner in cold storage with multisig, and market risk sits entirely with the client.