Premium banking in Georgia: SOLO and TBC Concept in detail

The question almost always arrives in the same form: “do Georgian banks have anything like private banking?” They do. At Bank of Georgia it is called SOLO, at TBC Bank Concept, and both institutions publish prices and conditions in full. What is still routinely misjudged is not the price — it is who gets in at all.

The two programmes are built differently

The most striking difference is not one of price but of structure. Bank of Georgia sells a package and publishes who it lets in. TBC sells a card and publishes no admission hurdle.

Feature	Bank of Georgia — SOLO	TBC Bank — Concept
Product form	Package with three tiers (SOLO X, Premium, Club)	Card with two tiers (Concept, Concept 360)
Admission criteria the difference that matters most in practice	Published — income, deposit or loan	Not published
Residency split	Yes — separate prices and criteria	No — one tariff world for everyone
Named personal contact	Included in all three tiers	Only from Concept 360 up
Price range (annual billing)	GEL 230–800	GEL 250–400

That TBC publishes no criteria does not mean there are none — it means they are decided case by case and told to you by the bank. For preparation that is the less comfortable of the two: at Bank of Georgia you know before the meeting whether you clear the threshold; at TBC you find out during it.

SOLO: three tiers, three ways in

For non-residents — the normal case in our mandates — these are the terms. The criteria are alternatives: any one of the three is enough.

Tier (non-residents)	Monthly	Annually	Any one of these three
SOLO X	GEL 35	GEL 350	Income GEL 3,000/month · deposit GEL 30,000 · loan GEL 100,000
SOLO PREMIUM	GEL 55	GEL 550	Income GEL 3,000/month · deposit GEL 30,000 · loan GEL 100,000
SOLO CLUB top tier	GEL 80	GEL 800	Income GEL 8,000/month · deposit GEL 100,000 · loan GEL 250,000

Two observations that appear in no brochure.

First, SOLO X and SOLO PREMIUM carry the same hurdle. What separates the two tiers is therefore not qualification but willingness to pay — anyone who qualifies for SOLO X qualifies for SOLO PREMIUM as well, if they pay the higher fee. The step that genuinely has a hurdle is the one up to SOLO CLUB.

Second, annual billing is cheaper throughout. The bank puts the saving at 16 %; worked out it is exactly one sixth — GEL 800 a year against GEL 960 billed monthly. Anyone holding the package for a full year anyway gives away two months’ fees by paying monthly.

The finding that surprises most people

You would expect a foreigner to have the harder time. At the top SOLO tier the opposite is true, and by a wide margin.

SOLO CLUB	Resident in Georgia	Non-resident
Annual fee	GEL 675	GEL 800
Income criterion	GEL 20,000/month	GEL 8,000/month
Deposit criterion a factor of five	GEL 500,000 total balance	GEL 100,000 deposit
Loan criterion	GEL 1,000,000	GEL 250,000

Someone resident in Georgia needs a total balance of GEL 500,000 for SOLO CLUB — around EUR 167,000. A non-resident needs a deposit of GEL 100,000, about EUR 33,000. The threshold is a fifth as high for the foreigner, who pays roughly 19 % more in fees.

This is neither an oversight nor generosity. It is price discrimination by willingness to pay: for the local market SOLO CLUB is a status product for wealthy Georgians, for the foreign market an acquisition product. Knowing the constellation changes the planning — a deposit that was going to sit in Georgia as a diversification position anyway also carries the qualification for the top tier.

The three ways in — and which is actually open to you

On paper the three criteria are equivalent. For a non-resident, in practice, they are not.

Route	What the bank means	For non-residents, in practice
Income	Regular salary credits to the account	Barely feasible — the credits have to originate in Georgia, which effectively presupposes residence there.
Deposit as a rule the only realistic one	Balances on accounts and securities accounts at the bank	The standard route. Predictable, immediately demonstrable, independent of a credit assessment.
Loan	Loan volume outstanding at the bank	Unsecured, effectively out of reach. Secured, the bank offers non-residents mortgage lending explicitly — from 30 % down, terms up to 10 years, in GEL, USD or EUR.

The loan route deserves a correction to an answer that is often given too broadly in this market, including by us. It is true that an unsecured loan is regularly ruled out for a foreigner without Georgian income on creditworthiness grounds, and that a purely deposit-secured loan would make no economic sense, tying up the same sum twice. For mortgage lending that does not hold: Bank of Georgia markets it to non-residents with the explicit note that local income is not required. Anyone buying property in Georgia anyway reaches the same qualification through the financing as through the deposit — without committing additional capital.

Travel benefits: the card decides, not the tier

The commonest misconception about lounge access is that it attaches to the package. It attaches to the card, and every tier offers a choice of cards. Two separate programmes run in parallel: LoungeKey on the Mastercard cards, DragonPass on the Visa cards.

SOLO tier	LoungeKey — Mastercard World Elite	DragonPass — Visa
SOLO X	6 free visits per year	6 free visits (Visa Platinum)
SOLO PREMIUM	10 free visits per year	6 free visits (Visa Platinum)
SOLO CLUB the Mastercard is the stronger card here	Unlimited, plus free access for up to 10 accompanying guests per year	10 free visits (Visa Signature), 6 (Visa Platinum)
Without a package	USD 35 per visit	USD 32 per visit

In SOLO CLUB the Mastercard World Elite is therefore the markedly stronger choice — reaching for the Visa Signature there trades unlimited visits for ten. Fast Track, a Priority Pass and a travel insurance package on the Visa Signature and the AmEx Platinum come with the top tier as well.

What the packages actually change in day-to-day payments

For most clients this is the part that pays for itself over the years, rather than the lounge access.

Bank of Georgia — SOLO

• Interest on the card balance above GEL 1,000: 2 % in SOLO X, 3 % in Premium, 4 % in Club
• Transfers to other banks: in X and Premium free up to GEL 10,000 a month, GEL 1 per transfer above that — in Club unlimited and free
• Foreign-currency international transfers: the same scale; without a package up to USD/EUR 500 per transfer
• Cash at the bank’s own ATMs free up to GEL 50,000 daily (Club: GEL 100,000)
• Additional cards: GEL 5 monthly for Visa Platinum and Mastercard World Elite, GEL 10 in Club for Visa Signature; AmEx Platinum as an additional card GEL 550 a year

The gap between the two TBC tiers is sharper than the GEL 150 price difference suggests: the named personal contact only comes with Concept 360. TBC itself describes the entry tier as the product for those who want to use premium services remotely — which makes it interesting for non-residents, but without the part most people mean when they say “VIP service”.

When a package pays for itself — and when it does not

• You hold a meaningful deposit in Georgia anyway — then it carries the qualification without committing extra capital
• You transfer larger sums abroad regularly — that is where the biggest running saving sits
• You fly often and actually use lounges, not just in theory
• You need a named contact because your circumstances generate follow-up questions
• You expect account opening to be easier or faster — the opposite applies
• You bring the deposit in only to get the card, and withdraw it afterwards
• You use the account purely as a reserve with few movements — then the package pays for benefits you never call on

For a pure diversification account with one or two trips a year, a package rarely pays for itself on travel benefits. It pays for itself on interest and fee-free payments — and that calculation should be made with your own figures, not the brochure’s.

Getting there

Two points routinely underestimated in planning.

Moving from a standard account is a change of product, not an upgrade. For the bank a new product arises, with a fresh KYC procedure and a new risk assessment. Anyone counting on opening the standard account cheaply and “switching over” later is planning a second complete exercise, not a click in online banking.

Applications in the non-resident segment take time. Bank of Georgia states around a week for processing an application. That is the processing, not the whole process: ahead of it sit documents, source-of-funds evidence and — depending on the route — placing the deposit.

Why a second institution still makes sense even with a premium package is set out in Which Georgian bank suits which profile?; why applications fail, in Why banks say no.

Premium banking in Georgia — frequently asked

Can I move a standard account to SOLO later?

For the bank this is not an upgrade of an existing account but a change of product — a new product, a fresh KYC procedure and a new risk assessment. Standing as an existing customer helps only so far, because the premium segment applies its own depth of review. Plan the change as a separate exercise with its own preparation, not as a formality to be caught up on later.

Which of the three admission criteria is realistic for a non-resident?

As a rule, the deposit. The income criterion assumes regular salary credits that have to originate in Georgia, which in practice means being resident and working there. The loan criterion is barely feasible unsecured for a foreigner without Georgian income; secured, mortgage lending remains — and the bank offers that to non-residents explicitly. Anyone not planning to buy property in Georgia effectively qualifies through the deposit, and at the top tier that is where the decision is made.

Is lounge access worth it against buying a Priority Pass yourself?

That is pure arithmetic and turns on how often you fly. The bank prices a single visit without a package at USD 32 to 35; the entry tier fee is roughly the equivalent of a handful of visits a year. If you fly once or twice a year you will not recover the fee on lounges alone — for that profile what counts is fee-free payments, interest on the card balance and a named contact.

What happens if I stop meeting the criteria?

The criteria are conditions of the package, not a one-off entry test. If the deposit falls below the threshold for good, the bank can move you to a lower tier or end the package. For planning that means the deposit you qualify with is committed capital, not a transit item — and it should not be the balance you would pull first if something else comes up.

Are the banks' English pages current?

For the programmes examined here, yes. Prices and admission criteria match on the Georgian and the English pages of both banks — checked on 28 August 2026. The only divergences were in individual descriptions of travel benefits, not in the amounts. For these products the English page is therefore a reliable basis. That is not true of Georgian legislation, where the rule still holds: the Georgian original before any English translation.

Why publish figures at all, given that fees date?

Because this article is about the fees, and without them it would explain nothing. The figures therefore carry a date, and the GEL amounts are what govern — the euro figures are approximations at a rate of roughly 3 GEL to the euro. What outlasts any figure is the structure: three tiers with three ways in at one bank, two card tiers with no published hurdle at the other.

This article is general information and does not constitute investment, legal or tax advice. All amounts are as published by the respective bank, checked on 28 August 2026; the GEL amounts govern, and the euro figures are approximations at a rate of roughly 3 GEL to the euro. Terms and admission criteria change continuously and are to be confirmed with the institution before you sign. As at: August 2026.