BoG iPay vs TBC E-Commerce

In depth

BoG iPay vs TBC E-Commerce — comparison of Georgia's two dominant online payment gateways. Both banks (BoG: 60% market share, TBC: 30%) sit behind their own payment gateway. Functional parity is 95% — same standard cards, 3D Secure 2.0, settlement T+1, recurring billing.

Financial differences in 2026: TBC commission is slightly cheaper (1.9-2.4% vs BoG 2.0-2.5% local cards) — for a merchant doing 1,000 transactions × $50 average = $50,000 turnover/day; 0.1% commission saving = $50/day = $1,500/month. Noticeable for high-volume merchants. International cards similar gap (BoG 2.8-3.2% vs TBC 2.7-3.1%).

Developer experience comparison: TBC is better — OpenAPI 3.1 spec, REST + GraphQL, official WordPress/Shopify/Magento plugins (released 2024). BoG — REST API only, partial OpenAPI spec, community-maintained plugins. Setup time typical: TBC 8 hours vs BoG 12 hours. Webhook reliability — both excellent, retry pattern identical (3 days).

Settlement timeline reality: TBC GEL T+1 (effectively 8-16 hours on business days), BoG GEL T+1 (10-22 hours on business days). USD/EUR — both T+3. Real-world cash flow — TBC sometimes 4-6 hours faster within the same day. For SaaS subscriptions this matters little; for daily-revenue retail e-commerce — TBC slightly better.

Unique features: TBC advantages — TBC Pay app deep-link checkout (one-tap mobile payments), QR code payment (offline integration), PSD2 Open Banking API (account-to-account, 0.5-1% cheaper), unified merchant dashboard. BoG advantages — installment UX more widely recognised (the "BoG icon" feature), longer market track record, 60% market share = strong customer recognition.

Which is actually right — Craftwebstudio recommendation 2026: (1) Already have a BoG business account → BoG (zero friction); (2) Already have a TBC business account → TBC (zero friction); (3) Multi-bank business + want to maximise acceptance → integrate both gateways (Stripe + cascade pattern: route based on which bank the cardholder uses). 60% of Craftwebstudio's clients use BoG (legacy + market share), 30% TBC (developer DX), 10% both.