Georgian banks and crypto: what TBC, Bank of Georgia and the rest actually allow

Every crypto purchase or sale in Georgia ends up touching a bank account sooner or later. Lari leaves your account to buy USDT, or comes back in when you sell. So the real questions aren’t abstract (“is crypto legal?”) but practical: which bank lets me buy crypto directly, which accounts work with which exchanges, and what happens when 8,000 GEL from a stranger lands in my TBC account on a Tuesday night.

The legal backdrop is simple. Georgian law lets commercial banks, microbanks, microfinance organisations and brokerage firms provide virtual-asset services under their own licences, without a separate VASPVASPVirtual Asset Service Provider — a crypto exchange, ATM operator or custodian. In Georgia every VASP must be registered with the National Bank (NBG). registration. Everyone else must be on the NBGNBGNational Bank of Georgia — the central bank. It supervises banks and, since 2023, crypto service providers (VASPs). register. Banks have been free to move into crypto for a while; most simply haven’t, publicly.

Where each bank stands

“None found” means exactly that: we searched for an official product page or policy and found nothing. It doesn’t mean the bank bans crypto. It means you’re relying on general AML practice rather than a written rule.

TBC Bank: crypto inside the mobile bank

TBC is the one big Georgian bank that went all in. In May 2026 it added crypto trading to its mobile bank (listed in the App Store as “TBC Bank”, seller JSC TBC Bank). According to Georgia Today and CFOtech, which quoted TBC’s CEO George Tkhelidze:

• about 30 crypto assets are available;
• you can buy from $1;
• trading was commission-free in the initial launch phase;
• there is no separate registration, since you’re already a verified TBC customer;
• Bybit Georgia (NBG registration 0019-9404) provides liquidity and execution.

The Bybit link wasn’t a surprise. In March 2026 Bybit said it was “in active discussions with a leading Georgian bank”, and two months later the TBC product launched on Bybit Georgia’s rails.

What’s still unclear

TBC’s website has a “კრიპტო” (Crypto) page under its digital services, but it returned an error every time we tried to load it. So we could not verify:

• the fees now that the launch phase is over;
• who is eligible (for example, whether non-resident customers are included);
• whether TBC or Bybit Georgia holds your coins, i.e. the custodialCustodialSomeone else (an exchange, a bank app) holds the keys for you. Easy to use, but you depend on that company. setup;
• whether you can withdraw coins to an external wallet, or only buy and sell inside the app.

That last point matters most. If you can’t withdraw, the TBC app is a convenient way to get price exposure, but not a way to fund a hardware wallet or pay someone in USDT. Check in the app before you buy, and see how it compares with stand-alone apps in our crypto apps guide.

The Binance memorandum

TBC’s crypto story didn’t start with Bybit. In December 2022 TBC announced a memorandum with Binance: TBC would open accounts for Binance’s Georgian operations and act as a lari on- and off-ramp, and a co-branded card was to be “explored”. We couldn’t confirm whether that arrangement is still active. Binance is not on the NBG register today; see our Binance in Georgia review.

Bank of Georgia, Liberty and Credo: no crypto product, but your money still moves

Bank of Georgia, Liberty Bank and Credo Bank don’t publish a crypto product or a crypto-transfer policy we could find. In everyday use, though, they’re everywhere in the crypto flow:

• Cards. Cryptal, an NBG-registered exchange (0002-9404), accepts Bank of Georgia, TBC and other Georgian cards for a 2% deposit fee. Our card-buying guide compares card routes.
• Bank payment services. At Cryptal, BOG Pay and TBC Pay are free deposit methods, and Liberty Bank deposits cost 0.5 GEL.
• P2P. On Binance’s GEL P2P market, the payment-method list includes Bank of Georgia, TBC, Liberty, BasisBank, Credo, Terabank, Hashbank, Denizbank and the Fastoo wallet. In a snapshot of the first 20 buy ads, 18 accepted Bank of Georgia and 16 accepted TBC. Bybit’s GEL P2P lists Bank of Georgia, TBC, Credo and Liberty; OKX adds Cartu, BasisBank, Fastoo and Paysera.

So the practical answer to “does Bank of Georgia allow crypto?” is that it handles crypto-related money every day, without a public rulebook. Which is exactly why transfers sometimes get questioned (more on that below).

Digital banks: Hash Bank, Pave Bank and Paysera

Georgia’s newer NBG-licensed digital banks are where crypto is most built in, though our information here is thinner.

Hash Bank (JSC Hash Bank) received its NBG licence decision on 3 November 2023 and was allowed to operate in the live environment from 20 September 2024. A secondary compilation, citing the bank’s own tariff annexes, describes:

• in-app buying, selling and swapping of BTC, ETH, LTC and other coins, free of charge apart from network withdrawal fees;
• transfers to external wallets, subject to checks;
• the bank acting as custodian, with the option to delegate safekeeping to a VASP;
• 0.5% cashback in BTC on card spending, up to GEL 150 a month;
• remote onboarding for foreigners with a passport, SEPA transfers at EUR 5 and SWIFT at 15/30.

We couldn’t verify these terms on Hash Bank’s own website, so treat them as a starting point and confirm in the app. Hashbank is also one of WhiteBIT’s two direct GEL rails (see below) and appears as a payment method on Binance P2P.

Pave Bank Georgia is the bank behind the Bybit Card, a Mastercard launched for Georgian residents in January 2026. See crypto cards in Georgia for what the card does.

Paysera Bank Georgia is another licensed digital bank. It shows up as a payment method in some OKX GEL P2P ads, but we found no Paysera crypto product for Georgia.

Moving money between your bank and an exchange

How cheaply you can move lari depends on which exchange you use. That’s the main reason your choice of bank matters.

The WhiteBIT figures come from its public fee API. WhiteBIT (Whitebit Georgia LLC, 0007-9404) is the only large exchange we found with direct GEL deposits and withdrawals to Georgian banks rather than P2P only. Read more in our WhiteBIT review.

For international transfers there’s less clarity. We found no published policy from any Georgian bank on SWIFT or SEPA payments to or from exchanges, and forum reports of rejected wires are unverified. If you use an international exchange, check its payout terms. CEX.IO, for example, lists SWIFT withdrawals at 0.3% + $25 (minimum $50, from $300). It has been operating since 2013 and holds US money-transmitter licences (NMLS 1804170) and a UK FCA cryptoasset registration (FRN 1007192), but has no GEL wallet, so expect a currency conversion at your bank.

Why accounts get frozen, and the Coinbase lari glitch

Banks are required to watch for money laundering. In a crypto context, secondary sources point to the same triggers again and again:

• P2P inflows from strangers. You sell USDT and receive lari from someone you’ve never met. If that person’s money turns out to be stolen or part of a fraud, your account is the next link in the chain.
• Many small incoming transfers in a short period, which can look like structuring. This comes from forum reports we couldn’t verify.
• Fake receipts and payment reversals in P2P deals, where the “buyer” disputes the payment after receiving your crypto.

Georgia has a well-known cautionary tale. On 31 August 2022, a decimal-point error in Coinbase’s lari pricing let about 900 users withdraw roughly 100 times their balance. According to The Block, Coinbase then worked to recover the money, and accounts at Bank of Georgia and TBC were frozen afterwards. The lesson isn’t really about Coinbase. Money that comes out of the crypto world can be traced to your bank account, and banks will freeze it when there’s a credible claim against it.

Source of funds: how to talk to your bank

Most freezes and delays are resolved with paperwork. A Tbilisi service quoted in a secondary source mentions $50,000 as the point where exchanges start asking for documents. There’s no official threshold, and banks may ask much earlier, especially for unusual activity on a salary account. Secondary sources also say Russian citizens report extra source-of-funds questions.

Property and car purchases deserve special care. Georgian businesses can’t legally accept crypto as payment, so the compliant route is always to sell at a registered VASP, receive lari or dollars in your account with the paperwork, and pay from there. Our guides to buying property with crypto and buying a car with crypto walk through it.

Building a crypto-friendly bank setup

There’s no single “crypto bank” in Georgia, but a sensible setup looks like this:

• One main account at TBC or Bank of Georgia for salary and daily life, ideally kept apart from P2P activity.
• A clear on- and off-ramp: a registered exchange with a direct GEL rail (WhiteBIT via TBC or Hashbank, or Cryptal’s free bank and BOG Pay / TBC Pay deposits).
• TBC’s in-app crypto if you only want small, simple exposure, after checking fees and withdrawal options in the app.
• A digital bank such as Hash Bank if built-in crypto matters to you, after confirming its terms directly.

To turn crypto back into lari without upsetting your bank, read how to cash out crypto in Georgia. For buying with banknotes instead, see buying crypto with cash.