Opening a corporate bank account on a personal visit to the Bank of Georgia

Georgia attracts investors from all over the world because doing business here is easy. The country has adequate legislation, the government make every effort to attract foreign capital, and the banking system is both stable and reliable. Georgian banks offer a full range of financial services, and their commission fees are lower in comparison to their European competitors. In addition, confidentiality of transactions is kept at a very high level, which is an important factor for many business people. Due to the fact that Georgia is not a member of the automatic data exchange group, fiscal authorities of other countries do not have access to the information about local bank accounts.

Offshore Pro Group offers a good opportunity to open a corporate account in, and thus become a client of, the leading Georgian bank – the Bank of Georgia. This financial institution does not have a minimum requirement to the account balance, which makes the service easily available to business people from any foreign country.

The cost of opening a corporate account in a large Georgian bank – the Bank of Georgia – is 4999 EUR.

Bank of Georgia is the second largest bank in the country. Its share of the total amount of deposits and loans in Georgia exceeds 30%. It also has the largest network of branch offices in the country. Today 271 offices are open all over Georgia, and the Bank’s headquarters are located in Tbilisi.

The Bank has an investment office in Tel-Aviv (Israel), and two representation offices abroad: one in Great Britain and one in Hungary. Besides, it owns 99,96% of the Belorussian People’s Bank shares. At home, the Bank of Georgia has control over JSC Galt & Taggart Company that is engaged in asset management, investments, brokerage, and market research. The bank also controls Georgian Leasing Company. 

Bank of Georgia regularly becomes the winner of various financial contests. For instance, in 2014 it was named the best social networks bank in Central and Eastern Europe. In the same year the bank was declared to be the safest bank in Georgia. Both of these prized were awarded to the bank by Global Finance, a prestigious international magazine.

Services offered to the Bank of Georgia corporate clients

Apart from the possibility to open a corporate account in this bank, it offers the following additional services:

• Credit services in the form of a loan, a credit line, or an overdraft;
• International business instruments such as letter of credit, banker guarantee, and factoring;
• Multi-currency corporate accounts that give the legal entity a possibility to use a single account number to manage its financial flows in different currencies;
• Different methods of remote access to the account: online, telephone, SMS, and mobile banking as well as direct debiting;
• Treasury services;
• Fixe-term and demand deposit accounts;
• Pay cards.
• Main benefits that attract non-residents to the Bank of Georgia:
• Low commission fees;
• A ramified network of branch offices and АТМ’s;
• A wide spectrum of corporate financial services;
• Premium service packages for big investors;
• A large variety of remote access services.

Let us take a closer look at the most popular serves provided by the Bank of Georgia.

A corporate account in the Bank of Georgia and online banking systems

Non-residents can open multi-currency accounts in the Bank of Georgia to make payments to their business partners, accumulate money, or transfer it to other accounts. This makes a corporate account in the Bank of Georgia ideal for doing business.

Clients have permanent access to their accounts via various remote banking systems. They allow the following:

• checking the balance;
• making money transfers;
• making direct deposits;
• creating deposit accounts and transferring money to them;
• ordering other bank services.

The client can obtain an account statement or make a payment through a remote banking system at any moment in time, even late at night, provided that there is Internet connection at her location wherever in the world it may be.

The Bank of Georgia offers the following methods of remote account control:

• Internet banking. The client receives access to her personal account on the official bank website. Online banking allows obtaining all the necessary information about the bank account and making all sorts of transactions. The cost of Internet banking is 5 lari per month, plus the client has to pay 40 lari for 4 years of password generation device rent;
• Telephone banking. This remote access method gives the client a possibility to manage her accounts by dialing 2 444 444. This service becomes accessible only after user identification;
• SMS banking. This method of remote access enables the client to obtain information about the balance, the receipts into the account, the loan payments, the accrued interest, the pay card transactions, etc. This system also allows making payments;
• Direct debiting. This service allows making regular automatic payments and thus avoid the need to repeatedly type in the recipient’s account details. Direct debiting is available to 3 accounts maximum.

Bank of Georgia loan services

The Bank of Georgia offers different kinds of loans to its clients to satisfy different needs: to increase the working capital, to buy assets, to refinance a pending loan or debt, to buy permanent assets (such as production equipment, real estate, vehicles, etc.) on pawn or under someone’s guarantee. An application for a loan can be filed online on the bank webpage.

Basic loan conditions:

• The loan amount in the form of a credit line is between 500 and 5 million lari;
• The unsecured overdraft limit is 20 000 lari, a secured or under a guarantee overdraft can go up to 40 000 lari;
• Effective interest rate starts at 7% a year.

Most often a revolving credit line is used to increase the working capital, an overdraft is used to compensate for cash deficiency, and non-revolving credit lines and classical loans serve to make investments.

For investment purposes the Bank of Georgia also provides sub-loans in cooperation with European Bank for Cooperation and Development. These can be used for business expansion, purchase of real estate, motor car park expansion, building refurbishment, and so on. The amount of the sub-loan is between 100 000 and 3 000 000 euros, the effective interest rate starts at 10% a year, but the client has to return only 15% of the loan.

Deposit accounts in the Bank of Georgia

Apart from a corporate account, non-residents can also open two types of deposit accounts in the bank of Georgia:

Fixed-term – it is not possible to withdraw money from this account before a set date;

Demand deposit account – the money can be withdrawn from this account at any time.

Deposit accounts are ideal for gaining passive income from the accrued interest. The Bank of Georgia clients can open deposit accounts in four currencies: lari, US dollars, euros, and British pounds.

With a fixed-term account the interest can be paid either monthly or at the end of the term.

Besides, one has to bear in mind that the minimum deposit is 500 lari or the equivalent in other currency. The time period for an account in the Georgian national currency is between 3 and 24 months. That for an account in a foreign currency is between 6 and 24 months.

The interest rate depends on the currency, the interest payment schedule, and the agreement duration period. The interest rates for different currencies fall into the following scopes:

• for lari – from 5.64% to 9.11% a year;
• for US dollars – from 1.21% to 3,3% a year;
• for euros – from 0,05% to 0,55% a year;
• for pounds – from 0,05% to 1,54% a year.

As far as the demand deposit account is concerned, it has two more advantages in addition to the possibility to withdraw money at any time: there is no minimum deposit requirement, and the agreement is timeless. Below are effective interest rates for this type of account:

• for lari – 2.02% a year;
• for a foreign currency – 0.25% a year.

A demand deposit account can be a good choice when one is unable to plan ahead for her financial flows.

If a client deposits more than US$ 1 million (or the equivalent in other currency) she will receive an individual interest rate offer.

Besides the four currencies mentioned above, the Bank of Georgia accepts Canadian and Australian dollars, Swiss francs, Polish zlotys, Check crowns, and Russian rubles. 

Bank of Georgia corporate pay cards

The Bank of Georgia encourages non-residents to use corporate pay cards in order to save time and have instant access to their funds.

The Bank issues Visa and MasterCard Business class pay cards valid for a 2-year period. The limit for card use in POS-terminals is set at 100 000 lari per day, but there is no limit for cash withdrawal in the bank branch offices.

Besides, clients can use AMERICAN EXPRESS BUSINESS credit cards issued by the Bank of Georgia. These cards are most handy for payments and cash withdrawals. Below are the main advantages of AMERICAN EXPRESS BUSINESS cards: 

• a 36-day grace period;
• a bonus program that allows the card holders to receive points for non-cash payments;
• travel insurance of the card holder as well as purchase protection and protection against fraud;
• access to the payment system exclusive offers;

effective interest rate on a credit line starting at 19.5% for the Gold class card, and at 19.3% for the Green class card.

All corporate cards from the Bank of Georgia are insured against illegal use by a third party. The cost of the service is 30 lari per year.

A corporate account in the Bank of Georgia: the opening procedure and the list of required documents

In order to open a corporate account and use the bank services the client has to appear in person at one of the branch offices. She will have to submit to a bank officer the company documents including information about its owners. These documents have to be translated into English or Georgian, and the translations have to be notarized and apostilled. The client will also have to fill out an application form that must contain information about the company, including its legal address, line of business, number of employees, and types of bank services the company is planning to use.

It will take the bank about 2 working days to consider the application documents and prepare the agreements. Thus, it would be a good idea to plan a 4-5 day stay in Georgia. If you are interested in becoming a client of one of the best Georgian banks, you are welcome to contact us via e-mail: info@offshore-pro.info.

The cost of our professional services is 3999 EUR. You can transfer the money to the account we will specify in one of the following ways:

• by a bankcard;
• via PayPal;
• via Western Union;
• from a WebMoney e-wallet;
• by a bank transfer.

After that you will have to collect all the required documents and send them to us so that we can submit them to the bank for approval.

List if required documents.

Foreigners wishing to open a corporate account in the Bank of Georgia have to submit the following documents:

• Foreign passports of the company CEO’s and shareholders (the copies have to ne notarized);
• Company Charter;
• Legal Entity Certificate;
• Certificate of Good Standing;
• Company extract from the register that contains exhaustive data about the legal entity;
• Signature samples of the authorized company representatives;
• Licenses and permits (if available);

A letter from the bank that the company uses for its financial operations, and an account number in this bank that will be used to make the first money transfer to the new account in the Bank of Georgia. The letter should contain the account details and contact information for the bank officer in charge.

NB: All documents have to be translated into English or Georgian, apostilled, and notarized. A Notary Public might be reluctant to notarize foreign passports of the company CEO’s or shareholders. If this is the case, you can have the passports translated by a sworn translator and then bind the translations with copies of the originals. After that the documents will be notarized without further ado.  

Please note that this list of documents may appear non-exhaustive. Depending on the situation, the Bank of Georgia officers may require some additional papers. For instance, they may ask for documents that indicate the sources of funds (such as purchase agreements, partner contracts, dividends, etc.), or an account statement from the servicing bank that contains payment purpose descriptions, and so on.

If you are interested in opening a corporate account in the Bank of Georgia right now, please contact us via e-mail: info@offshore-pro.info. We will provide professional assistance without delay, our staff will effectively negotiate the approval of the documents with the bank and then appoint a meeting time for you. All that will be left for you to do is come to Georgia and sign the agreement. Bingo!