Tbilisi turned into a trading hub the way most cities do: cheap incorporation, functioning banks, fast internet and a large pool of people who already speak three languages. Firms serving Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Central Asia and parts of the Russian-speaking market found it easier to run an operation from here than from Cyprus or Dubai. Then they hit the same wall everyone hits, which is that a trading business is mostly software and nobody in the founding team wants to write a withdrawal queue.
We are that software supplier. No office in Tbilisi, no Georgian entity, no licence, no involvement in client funds. We build the platform and the back office and we run them for you.
Who this page is for
Founders in Tbilisi starting or running a brokerage, and founders running evaluation businesses. In this region the second is more common than people outside it assume: prop firms scale on marketing and payouts rather than on licences and client money, so a small Tbilisi team can reach a regional audience quickly. The two models diverge fast, and the split is set out in broker versus prop firm.
The Georgian regulatory backdrop
The National Bank of Georgia is the country's financial supervisor and licenses brokerage companies alongside banks and other financial institutions. Georgia is not an EU member state, so MiFID II, the ESMA leverage measures and the EU passporting regime do not apply to a Georgian firm. That is a fact about scope, not a judgement about quality, and it has two consequences a founder should think about early. First, the rulebook you operate under is Georgian, and only your Georgian counsel can tell you what your activity requires. Second, serving clients in the EU or the UK from a Georgian entity raises a separate set of questions that no software vendor can answer for you. Third country firms and the EU and regulated versus unregulated brokers lay out the mechanics.
SINGUARD is a software company. It is not a broker, a bank, a payment institution, a law firm or an adviser, and it has no presence in Georgia. Licensing, AML, client funds and compliance stay with your firm.
What we provide
eTrader is the trading platform on web, iOS and Android, with the market data feed included in the platform rather than billed separately. The Broker CRM covers onboarding and document checks, deposits and withdrawals, account groups, spreads and markups, swaps and commissions per instrument, and a full audit trail. The Prop Firm CRM covers evaluations: challenge templates, daily and total drawdown, consistency rules enforced by the engine, breach records and a payout queue with approvals.
All of it fully managed. We host, patch, monitor and support. Once your own licensing and paperwork are done, we can have you live in 24 hours. Firms without a technical team at all should read starting a brokerage without a tech team, because the trap is hiring three engineers to maintain something that should never have been your problem.
Payments, banking and the local reality
Georgian banks are usable and reasonably quick, which is one of the reasons firms come here. Card acquiring for a trading business is harder, as it is everywhere, and firms in Tbilisi generally run more than one provider. Accounts are usually denominated in USD while a share of local deposits arrives in lari, so conversion sits somewhere in the flow and needs an owner. Crypto deposits are common across this client base, and the operational handling of them, including confirmations, wallet reuse and settlement risk, is covered in crypto payments for trading firms and USDT on TRC20 versus ERC20. Correspondent banking for outbound wires is the part that surprises people, and banking for trading firms explains why.
Whatever the mix, the CRM keeps it controlled: several providers at once, deposits matched to accounts, and withdrawals released against free equity rather than raw balance.
Languages, hours and structure
Tbilisi is four hours ahead of London in winter, which means the desk covers the Asian close and the whole European session before New York opens. Client languages are Georgian, Russian and English, with Turkish and Armenian appearing in the regional book. The platform and the client portal are multilingual, and support material can be set per language, so one team covers the whole region from one system.
The common structure is a Georgian company for the operating business, local banking plus at least one alternative rail, an in-house sales and retention team, and bought technology. Founders comparing Tbilisi with EU bases usually also look at Sofia and Vilnius, and the whole set is on the locations page.
Talk to us
Book a call or text us. Tell us what you are licensed for and who your clients are, and we will tell you which products you need and what we would leave alone. Alex Onta & Roman Onta run SINGUARD and take these calls themselves.
Where SINGUARD is based, and where we meet firms in Tbilisi
All of the software, the contracts and the policies come from SGHK Softwares Limited in Hong Kong, the holding company that builds and licenses eTrader and both CRMs. The team works out of Dubai, where both Executive Directors, Alex Onta and Roman Onta, live for most of the year, and our licensed UAE entity is SINGUARD GLOBAL FZC in Ajman Free Zone. We hold no office or licence in Georgia, and none is needed: the platform is delivered and managed from our own clustered servers, so a firm in Tbilisi runs exactly what a firm anywhere else runs, and your licence, your client money and your compliance obligations stay entirely with your own entity.
Being in Dubai keeps the team on the industry circuit and within easy reach of Tbilisi for calls and meetings, in a time zone that overlaps most of the trading world.
In person, the place to find us is the industry circuit. The team attends Forex Expo Dubai and the other major shows, wearing the SINGUARD and eTrader shirts, and you can walk up without an appointment, ask for a live demo of the terminal and both CRMs, and talk to the Executive Directors directly in English, Italian, Romanian or Russian. See where to find us at the expo.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does SINGUARD have an office in Tbilisi?
No. SINGUARD has no office, entity, staff or licence in Georgia. We build and run the software remotely for firms based in Tbilisi, and the team travels to industry events.
Who regulates brokerage firms in Georgia?
The National Bank of Georgia is the country's financial supervisor and licenses brokerage companies and other financial institutions. What your firm needs depends on the activity you carry out, and that is a question for Georgian counsel.
Is Georgia inside the EU regulatory framework?
No. Georgia is not an EU member state, so MiFID II and the ESMA retail leverage measures do not apply directly to a Georgian firm. Firms in Tbilisi that want to serve EU clients have to solve that separately with their advisers.
How fast can a Tbilisi firm go live on SINGUARD?
Once your licensing, entity and paperwork are in place, the trading platform and the CRM can be live in 24 hours, including branding, instruments and payment providers.
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