Following his appointment as Senior Vice President and Group Country Manager for the Caucasus, Ukraine, Moldova, Southern and Eastern Europe, and Central Asia in May 2026, Sergii Martynchuk now leads one of Visa's most diverse and dynamic regional portfolios. During his first official visit to Georgia, he spoke with BMG about how Georgia can move from digital payments maturity into the next phase of trusted, AI-enabled, token-powered and inclusive digital commerce. The discussion covered the country's payments ecosystem, the future of digital money, responsible innovation and the importance of sustainable public-private collaboration.
Welcome to Georgia. You've recently taken on the role of Senior Vice President and Group Country Manager for the Caucasus, Ukraine, Moldova, Southern and Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. What are your first impressions of Georgia, and how does the country fit into your regional priorities?
Thank you for the warm welcome. Georgia stands out because it has already moved from digital payments adoption to digital payments maturity. The conversation here is no longer only about enabling people to pay by card or phone. It is about what comes next: how payments can support smarter commerce, stronger tourism, more competitive SMEs, better cross-border connectivity and a more resilient digital economy.
My new role spans a diverse set of markets: from the Caucasus to Eastern Europe and Central Asia, each with its own pace of digital transformation and its own opportunities. In a region as diverse as ours, leadership starts with listening locally and connecting those local priorities to global capabilities. My role is to ensure that markets like Georgia can benefit from Visa's global innovation while preserving what makes their ecosystems unique and competitive.
Visa is proud to have been part of Georgia’s digital journey for more than 27 years, working closely with banks, fintechs, merchants, the government and the National Bank to make secure cashless payments accessible for more people. This visit is about deepening those partnerships and understanding how Visa can continue supporting Georgia's next phase of growth, not only as a payments market, but as a digital commerce economy.
Georgia is frequently cited as a regional leader in digital payments adoption. How would you describe the country's progress, and how Visa's presence and role in the country is evolving beyond payments infrastructure alone?
One of the clearest indicators of Georgia's advanced payments ecosystem is its global leadership in contactless payments penetration. Today, nearly 100% of Visa transactions in the country are contactless. This achievement is the result of years of close collaboration with local players, supported by the introduction of Visa Token Service in 2016, which laid the foundation for the seamless digital wallet payments that many Georgians use every day.
Together with our partners in Georgia, we continue to invest in the development of the country's payments ecosystem. For example, a few years ago we introduced Visa Direct to Account, expanding access to more efficient cross-border business payments and strengthening Georgia’s connectivity to the global financial system.
But Visa's role today goes beyond infrastructure. We see ourselves as a trusted network layer connecting banks, fintechs, merchants, governments and consumers through secure, interoperable and scalable technology. That means supporting not only how people pay, but how businesses grow, how tourism becomes more connected, how SMEs join the digital economy and how Georgia strengthens its position as a competitive regional hub.
The Business Lounge Powered by Visa at Kutaisi International Airport, launched this May together with United Airports of Georgia and TBC Bank, is one example of this broader role. It reflects how payments, travel, service experience and economic development are increasingly connected.
AI is transforming commerce globally. What does this shift mean in practice for consumers and businesses in markets like Georgia?
We're entering a new era of commerce – one that is becoming more intelligent, more personalized and more embedded into everyday interactions. The biggest change is that commerce will become less manual. Consumers will not always search, compare and check out step by step. Increasingly, trusted AI agents may help them discover products, compare offers, book travel, reorder everyday items or complete purchases within clear permissions and controls.
For businesses, especially SMEs and digital merchants, this creates a new opportunity and a new requirement. They will need to be discoverable, trusted and ready for AI-driven commerce. AI can help them personalize customer experiences, reduce friction and operate more efficiently, but only if the underlying transaction environment is secure and transparent.
That is why Visa has introduced Visa Intelligent Commerce, a global platform for agentic commerce, which provides the trust, control and connectivity framework for AI agents to securely discover, initiate and complete transactions. Tools like Agent Score and the Agentic Directory are designed to help merchants and AI agents interact safely and transparently.
Georgia is well positioned for this transition because of its strong digital adoption, advanced payments behavior and growing e-commerce sector. The opportunity is not only to make shopping easier. It is to build a commerce environment where convenience, consumer control and trust develop together.
None of this works without the right foundation already in place, and tokenization is a great example of that foundation quietly doing its job. Across the CEMEA region, tokenized transactions have grown from 26% in 2023 to around 70% in 2026, replacing sensitive card details with secure digital tokens and quietly powering the seamless, one-tap payments. That same technology is what will let tokens carry richer data and stronger trust signals for AI-driven commerce tomorrow.
Beyond the consumer-facing side, Visa has also been investing heavily in the ‘back end’ of payments –stablecoins. What is driving this, and what could it mean for Georgia and the wider CEMEA region?
Much of the innovation shaping the future of payments happens behind the scenes, stabelcoins are one of the clearest examples of where that is heading, pointing to how settlement and value exchange can become faster, more programmable and more efficient.
At the same time, we’re also seeing growth in stablecoin settlement. Globally, Visa has already reached an annualized stablecoin run rate of approximately $7 billion as of March 2026, and our new Tokenized Deposits capability will allow banks to turn traditional deposits into programmable digital money while keeping funds on the balance sheet. We've also introduced the Visa Stablecoin Platform, giving financial institutions and fintechs a single, Visa-managed environment to mint, move and manage stablecoins, starting with Open USD (OUSD), a stablecoin recently introduced by Open Standard. With more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs already live or in development globally, alongside the continued advancement of tokenization, these innovations are becoming practical tools for financial institutions across CEMEA to modernize their infrastructure.
For fast-growing, ambitious markets like Georgia, the relevance is clear, but it must be approached responsibly and in line with local regulation. As commerce becomes more digital and more cross-border, the ability to move money securely, efficiently and at scale will become a competitive advantage for the entire ecosystem.
There's ongoing discussion in Georgia around proposed amendments to the payment systems law, which touch on several aspects of how the industry operates, including fees. Before we get into that, can you explain what's actually happening behind the scenes when we tap a card or pay with our phone, and why that context matters for this discussion?
It’s a crucial question, because people rarely see what happens behind a single payment.
Every transaction involves multiple participants: issuing banks, acquiring banks, processors, global networks like Visa, and increasingly, technology partners such as Apple or Google, offering digital wallets for tokenized payments.
All of them invest continuously in cybersecurity, fraud prevention, encryption and system reliability to ensure payments work instantly and securely.
I recently discussed the proposed regulatory changes with the Governor of the National Bank of Georgia, and we agreed on the importance of looking at the entire ecosystem, not just fees, but also investment in innovation and long-term market development.
It’s also important to remember that cash is not free. It carries significant costs in production, transportation, security and handling, as well as broader impacts on transparency and tax efficiency.
Therefore, any regulatory change should consider the full ecosystem, where every participant plays a critical role, and any change to how one part is priced or structured can have ripple effects across the whole chain.
Given that context, when other countries have introduced caps on card fees similar to what's being proposed in Georgia, what that meant in practice?
International experience is consistent and shows three main outcomes.
First, consumers often see reductions in loyalty and rewards programs, which are particularly popular in Georgia and are typically funded through the same revenue streams affected by fee caps.
Second, banks tend to introduce alternative charges, such as account maintenance or card issuance fees, which can impact a much broader group of consumers, including those who do not participate in rewards programs.
Third, innovation often slows, with reduced investment in new payment technologies, product development, and security; something particularly relevant for a market like Georgia, which has built a highly advanced digital payments ecosystem.
These aren't hypothetical concerns; they're patterns we've observed across multiple markets, and I believe the most sustainable path is through healthy competition and partnership.
Visa has recently unveiled new tools for cybersecurity and small-business commerce, including the Visa Threat Intelligence Platform and new smartphone-based acceptance capabilities. How do these fit into Visa's broader strategy for the region?
Security and inclusion are central to our regional strategy, and these innovations address both.
The Visa Threat Intelligence Platform helps financial institutions detect cyber threats earlier by combining cyber and payments intelligence. It builds on Visa’s global infrastructure, which blocks 90 million cyberattacks and 11 million phishing emails every month, and more than $13 billion in investments in technology over the past five years .
At the same time, we are focused on expanding access for small businesses. Visa Accept turns a smartphone into a payment terminal, helping micro-merchants accept digital payments without additional hardware, while Visa Direct complements this by enabling fast payouts from the same device, and can support use cases such as salaries, refunds and merchant settlements.
With nearly 40% of the world's 1.3 billion unbanked adults already using smartphones globally, these tools represent a major opportunity to expand financial inclusion. For Georgia and the wider region, this is about lowering the barriers for small businesses, improving cash flow and making digital commerce more accessible to more people.
Looking ahead, what are your priorities for Georgia and the wider region, and what message would you like to leave with local businesses and consumers?
Our priority is to help Georgia move confidently into the next phase of digital commerce. That means continuing to work with banks, fintechs, merchants, government institutions and the National Bank of Georgia to expand secure acceptance, support faster and more efficient money movement, and bring trusted innovation to consumers and businesses.
As payments become more digital, more intelligent and more embedded into everyday life, trust becomes the defining factor. Innovation can only scale when people feel secure using it, businesses see value in adopting it and the broader ecosystem remains sustainable.
Georgia has already built one of the most advanced digital payments environments in the region. The next opportunity is to use that foundation to strengthen competitiveness, support SMEs, enable tourism and cross-border commerce, and build a digital economy that works for more people. Visa's mission remains unchanged: to connect economies, expand access and support inclusive digital transformation. We are committed to being a long-term partner to Georgia as the country shapes the next chapter of trusted, innovative and inclusive digital commerce.
