The FINANCIAL — Last year was the most successful year for instant payment system company TBC Pay.
According to David Kenchadze, CEO of TBC Pay, the company had 120% growth in 2012. The company’s annual turnover last year amounted to GEL 300,000,000. The current year has also started well and the company is planning to offer some new services to its clients in 2013.
“TBC Bank first created its instant payment service together with another company. It meant that for the first time people were able to pay with the help of terminals in different branches of the Bank. After time it became evident that there was growing opportunity for market development. Bank officials therefore decided to create their own company which would serve the branches. These fast pay terminals quickly became very popular and as a result TBC Pay boxes soon became available outside of the banks, as they have been now since 2010,” Kenchadze said.
“The system of fast pay terminals was first developed gradually, but later became more aggressive on the market from 2011 onwards. Demand was very high, the market was ready and everything went well technically, so it was a good period for becoming active on the market,” Kenchadze said.
“The most successful year for TBC Pay was 2012. We had a strong increase that year as the company grew by about 120% which is a fair result. Last year we were awarded by Golden Brand Awards 2011 for the category of ‘Fast Payment System – Favourite Brand’. The company’s growth has been developing at a natural pace in line with the constantly growing number of our everyday customers, the number of terminals and payment locations has also been expanding,” Kenchadze said.
According to Kenchadze, many interesting services have been added to the pay boxes. The company has added the following to its terminals: the opportunity to make payments to other banks and about 150 other new services.
“In total our pay boxes have more than 300 services which our customers use every day. We have a variety of categories from bank, mobile, totalizator, telecommunication, utilities, charity, different website services to many others. This year we plan to provide a number of new services and one of them will be appearing on the market soon; it will be launched in May,” Kenchadze said.
“The year 2013 has started well. We had about 10% growth every month last year and such an increase can’t end abruptly, even if the market were to encounter some problems. In any case, there are no problems at the moment; we have a stable and growing market. So our company is maintaining this growth in 2013 as well. This increase has been due to some changes and reshuffles in regard to management as well as IT developments within the company. Increased efficiency and being maximally oriented on clients gave us the possibility to boost the company further still,” Kenchadze said.
“Statistically, the most-used service at our company is mobile payments. The totalisator is another of the most demanded services at TBC Pay boxes, after which comes banking, communal expenses and telecommunications. At the beginning we had a strategy of limited service in order to simplify the process for our customers. People quickly got used to the format however, so we have had no problems expanding the services since then. With the help of our terminals people can pay for not only Georgian services but foreign ones too. Now it’s possible to top-up a Ukrainian phone balance for example,” Kenchadze stated.
As the CEO of TBC Pay says, about 180,000 people are using the company’s services every day. Pay boxes exist in most of the main regions of Georgia which are economically active, but the company also has small-sized terminals that are available in the smaller regions and which don’t require so much tending to.
“If a region is economically undeveloped then neither we nor any other business will decide to enter it until it becomes more interesting. We have started bringing our terminals to big villages though, and for the future we will have entered some of the smaller villages and high, mountainous regions of Georgia,” Kenchadze said.
“We have two main advantages on the market. First – our user-friendly interface; our terminals do not overload one with information, they are organized and easy to use. It’s vitally important for us to keep customers content with the service and to increase the number of our loyal clients. Our other competitive advantage is the quality. Of course there are some system delays that occur from time to time, but we are always working on reducing the number of delays and working on improving them operatively. It’s a constant process,” Kenchadze said.
“We have a monthly monitoring system and are always trying to come up with some new ideas. In most cases issues are caused by the clients themselves. That’s why there are some special rules which all customers should adhere to when using the pay boxes. Sometimes people insert coins earlier than is indicated on the screen for example, or sometimes there are cases when the power supply gets turned off for whatever reason and the terminals then don’t work. Also, the GPRS signals of mobile companies get scrambled during bad weather. There are many instances of vandalism, unfortunately; the terminals are often getting damaged. We have mobile groups working in their respective districts during the day whose job it is to try to solve any problems as quickly as possible,” Kenchadze said.
TBC Pay has its own terminals as well as dealers. Any company has the opportunity to buy pay boxes from TBC Pay, sign an agreement and in that way become a dealer.
“We buy our terminals from the famous Russian company Unicum, a leading company in Russia that has been on the market for a long time. They produce very high-quality products. We are only interested in the highest quality mechanisms because that way we can ensure that our customers will be satisfied and we will have fewer expenses for fixing or servicing the terminals,” Kenchadze said.
“We plan to widen our network this year. We are going to launch three know-how services which aren’t yet on the market. We are going to add some new providers, try to increase the number of terminals and coverage. We are trying to enter such places where society still doesn’t have such services. Our main aim will be to remain efficient on the market. We are trying to do something that is well nigh impossible, to develop at a very fast rate at the same time as maintaining efficiency. We will try to do this however. With the help of the correct management, the motivation and professionalism of our team, we managed to do this in 2012 and will try to do it even better in 2013,” Kenchadze said.
“In total there are about 1,900 TBC Pay terminals that have been working during the last few months,” Kenchadze said.
According to the CEO of the company, the fact that TBC Pay terminals are so closely associated with the name of one of Georgia’s leading banks is quite advantageous for them.
“Clients generally have greater trust in TBC Pay boxes. They have more faith in paying with the help of our terminals and they are confident that, with us, they will not have any problems with their transactions,” Kenchadze said.
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