From Monopoly to Open Market - NBG’s approach Qorus-Infosys Finacle Banking Innovation Awards 2026

The National Bank of Georgia (NBG) operates in a status quo where 80% of the market share in a four-million-person country is concentrated in the hands of very “agile incumbent” banks. The thinking process while designing new Open Banking APIs or targeted regulatory sandboxes goes beyond the standard mandate of a regulator. In such an environment, fostering competition requires not only supervision but a proactive, innovation-driven mindset. NBG’s integrated approach, which combines targeted regulatory sandboxes with Open Banking infrastructure, was conceived to open space for new entrants, enable digital experimentation, and diversify one of the most concentrated banking systems in the region.

We spent considerable time identifying use cases that were not only innovative but also sustainable, capable of surviving and scaling in a market dominated by incumbents. To create trust among newcomers to the market, it was vital to have initial disruptive success stories in both the sandbox and open banking. Kursi.ge pioneered Georgia’s first non-bank digital exchange platform, while Silk Bank became the country’s leading digital bank through open-API integration. These examples demonstrate how our approach enabled real change and market trust.

Within the targeted sandbox, Kursi.ge’s one-year live testing phase demonstrated the scale of impact, with total conversion volumes exceeding 3 billion GEL and generating an estimated 15 million GEL in customer-side savings from better exchange rates. These outcomes illustrated both consumer benefit and the market’s readiness for fintech-driven competition. In parallel, Silk Bank leveraged NBG’s Onboarding API to grow from 3,000 to over 300,000 clients within a year. This new Open Banking API became the 'killer service' for a previously complex process: client onboarding, which once required manual, photo-based identification, was instantly digitized and simplified. This rapid growth demonstrated that open infrastructure can directly translate into measurable results and foster confidence in innovation.

As a next step, the National Bank of Georgia (NBG) is advancing scalability through cross-border use cases. This includes launching a joint regulatory sandbox with its main trade partners along the Middle Corridor and holding discussions on Open Banking API interoperability with other countries in the region. These efforts are aligned with NBG’s overall Fintech Development Strategy, “Fintech in Georgia: Building on the Middle Corridor Momentum,”and represent a key step toward greater regional interoperability and sustainable innovation.

Our initiative embodies a new kind of regulatory philosophy centered on the principle “show me the money,” emphasizing that true innovation must deliver real, measurable value to people and the economy. This approach, described as “regulators in the shoes of innovators,” marks a paradigm shift in how central banks operate. NBG’s bottom-up process identified market gaps and addressed them through specific, contextualized, and value-driven use cases. By striking a balance between being solution-oriented and problem-oriented, NBG introduced initiatives that deliver real benefits and are actively utilized, rather than creating innovations for the sake of technology itself.