Georgia is naturally shaping up to be one of the most important hubs

It’s not just about the South Caucasus anymore, it’s a much broader geography, - this is how MasterCard Vice President for Georgia and Armenia David Zhetygadze answers the question posed by Business Insider Georgia “Is MasterCard considering Georgia as a regional hub in the South Caucasus?” According to him, MasterCard’s desire is to cover a fairly large part of Eastern Europe and Central Asia from Georgia.

“According to MasterCard’s plan, Georgia will naturally form one of the important hubs along with Dubai and Istanbul. We want to cover a fairly large part of Eastern Europe and Central Asia from Georgia.

A regional team is already operating in Tbilisi, which is responsible for supporting not only Georgia, but also neighboring markets - the Caucasus, the Middle East, Central and Central Asia. This means that Georgia is no longer just a consumer market; it is becoming an exporter of knowledge, innovation and services. Our vision is very clear: Georgia should be a place where innovations are first introduced in the region, tested and then scaled up in neighboring markets,” says David Zhedgadze.

According to him, the transfer of regional projects to Georgia has begun.

“In fact, this is already underway. I would single out several directions. These are tourism and the Priceless platform. The addition of Georgia to Priceless.com means that part of the regional and global campaigns will already be generated in Georgia and then spread to other markets.

Also worth noting is AI and hyper personalization. The implementation of Dynamic Yield, an AI-based hyper personalization platform, with one of the Georgian partners practically means that Georgia is becoming a testing ground for innovations that will then be introduced in other countries.

The logic of this model is simple: first - Georgia, then - the region. It is strategically important for us that global initiatives not only “come out” to the Georgian market, but also be refined here and become exemplary for other countries,” says David Zhedgadze.

businessinsider.ge