“Can TBI Bank become the leading challenger bank in Southeastern Europe by embedding consumer credit and merchant payment tools into a unified shopping-and-financing ecosystem across both physical and digital channels?”
Founded in 2002 as a non-banking financial services group (TBI Credit), the company entered formal banking in 2011 via the acquisition of Nova Ljubljanska Banka's Bulgarian branch, rebranding as TBI Bank EAD. The bank has since pivoted toward a challenger bank model in Southeastern Europe, building a dual consumer-merchant ecosystem where point-of-sale installment lending powers growth across ~38,000 partner stores. Digital expansion into Germany, Denmark, and Poland marks a pan-European ambition, while AI-driven chatbots and an embedded finance product suite (Fusion Pay) position TBI as a fintech-flavored bank rather than a traditional lender.
TBI Bank processes payments through Fusion Pay (self-operated).
TBI Bank uses Onfido for KYC and identity verification.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 3 layers in TBI Bank's stack: Payments / PSP (Fusion Pay (self-operated)); Lending (Installment loans (in-store and online), Buy Now Pay Later (split into 4 interest-free payments), Fusion Pay (eCommerce installment module), Business loans and 1 other); KYC (Onfido).
TBI Bank was founded by Ivaylo Georgiev and is founded in 2002, headquartered in 52–54 Dimitar Hadzhikotsev Street, Sofia, Bulgaria.
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