🗞Weekly Digest by PBC - Keeping you in the loop on what matters.

🇬🇪 Local: TBC Bank launches crypto trading inside its banking app
TBC Georgia added crypto trading directly inside its mobile banking app — one-click onboarding, no separate exchange needed. Active users on its investment platform are up 42% since January 2026. In April, TBC was named the Most Innovative Bank in Central and Eastern Europe by Global Finance. Georgia's biggest bank is quietly becoming a fintech.
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🌍 Global: Visa, Mastercard, Stripe & Coinbase form a stablecoin consortium — USDT and USDC are on notice
On June 3, CoinDesk reported that four of the world's biggest payment players are quietly building a joint stablecoin to rival Tether and Circle. The stablecoin market sits at $325B — Circle and Tether control 80% of it. This consortium has the distribution networks to flip that. No name, no token details yet — but the signal is unmistakable.
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💳 Mastercard: AI agent makes Europe's first live payment — no human involved
On June 2, Mastercard, Worldline and ING completed the first ever end-to-end payment initiated by an AI agent in a production environment. A Dutch cardholder's AI agent found a product, negotiated terms, and paid — start to finish, zero human input. Agentic commerce just went from concept to reality.
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🇬🇪 Local: Tether + Georgia launch GEL₮ — the Georgian Lari goes on-chain
On May 25, Tether and the Government of Georgia announced GEL₮ — a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the Georgian Lari, backed by the state. This marks one of the first times a national currency has been placed on blockchain rails under a purpose-built regulatory framework. The NBG framework is modeled on the US GENIUS Act and Europe's MiCA. 100% reserve backing required. Georgia just put itself on the global fintech map.
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💳 Mastercard: Stablecoin settlements go 24/7 — across 8 blockchains
Mastercard announced always-on stablecoin settlement for issuers and acquirers — weekends, holidays, no waiting. Supported networks: Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, XRPL, Arbitrum, Base, Canton, Tempo. First partners: ARQ, Cross River, Nuvei, CBW Bank. The card network just became a crypto settlement layer.
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🏦 Global: SWIFT goes live on blockchain — 25+ banks processing real payments by end of June
50+ banks including JPMorgan, HSBC, Lloyds and Deutsche Bank have joined SWIFT's new blockchain-based payment framework. 25+ will go live before July. Instant settlement, upfront fee transparency, end-to-end traceability — no crypto, no stablecoins, just tokenized deposits on a permissioned Ethereum L2. SWIFT's answer to XRP and stablecoin rails: we'll just build it ourselves.
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Dear friends, on June 25, we invite you to FUTURUM PAYMENTS GEORGIA 2026 — an event dedicated to traditional banking, payments, and crypto.

200+ attendees | 20+ partners | Media reach 500,000 people

Our Partners: Mastercard, GAUS, BitOK, XDAO, Crypto Navigator, NEW LEVEL, and more.

📍 Tbilisi, Georgia | June 25, 2026
🔗 Registration & tickets
🔗 Pay with crypto