Banking in Georgia

[Marzio]

As is often the case, the Georgian bank doesn’t want to discuss the transfer - they just prefer to reject it to minimize any risk to themselves.

With those premises, doing international business in Georgia is doomed.

 

[oldtimer2]

Three more comments about Georgian banks:
1. If the government thinks you owe them any tax then they can deduct the cash directly from your account. No court order or anything needed. Then the account holder must fight the government in its own court system to try and win the funds back. The bank stays out of it / does not help. It has not happened to me for business account transactions but they did do that to my personal TBC account when I was slow / past the due date for paying some import VAT I owed for importing some personal items from the USA. The government just took it from my personal account. No warning, no discussion, and the banks comply as its the law in Georgia.
2. Bank deposit guarantee amount in Georgia is peanuts, unlike EU banks at 100k.

My two cents worth? I wouldn’t touch a Georgian bank unless I had fully legit business in Georgia and maintain regular inwards and outwards payments from ‘clean’ countries and every month show normal business activities payments (wages, taxes, expenses, etc).
As for funds coming or going to countries like those listed in the BoG SOLO rules quoted above… then definitely advise / warn the bank in advance so they know what is going to happen and give them proof of legitimacy and maybe they will accept it. I prefer to use an EMI like WISE for such transfers but who knows if or when they might also start just rejecting transfers to / from such listed countries simply because its quicker and easier to reject rather than put in the time and effort to confirm legitimacy? It’s probably a universal problem with banking these days.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: Paysera is a registered bank in Georgia - so will be subject to same local laws and rules as the other Georgian banks. Just in case anybody saw the earlier mention of Paysera and didn’t join the dots that Paysera advantages will be More limited since its a registered bank in Georgia. Time will tell how Paysera Georgia works for expats - but I will not be amongst the first to try it out.

 

[backpacker]

Recently (like last week) we received a legitimate payment from Hong Kong and TBC asked no questions - they just rejected it and sent it back. Their reason? The sender did not provide / transfer to TBC using the IBAN number for our company’s account. Everyone knows Hong Kong does not use IBAN system and of course we reminded TBC - but they just repeat the same message. “Sender must use our company IBAN. “.

This is usual practice.
It does not matter what the outgoing country uses, it only matters what the receiving country uses.

Now in the quoted post above we can read BoG SOLO rules list a range of countries with restrictions on outbound transfers (including Hong Kong) but I think its very safe to say they apply the same restrictions on incoming transfers.

Inbound is much worse than outbound. Receive from one of the above countries and expect (at best) a large questionaire.
If you can't show local ties (e.g. residency) to one of the countries mentioned, expect the transfer to be returned to sender (even if it's your own account).