Salim Dhanani, CEO & Co-Founder of Pave Bank, has built the world’s first programmable bank, enabling businesses to operate with both traditional finance and regulated digital assets in one platform. Having previously founded one of Southeast Asia’s largest neobanks, he’s now pioneering the next evolution of financial systems where money itself becomes programmable.
Can you explain what a programmable bank is for people who might not be familiar with the concept?
To explain programmability in banking, we need to step back and dissect what the financial system is today. Currently, banks and financial institutions arbitrate counterparty risk — you trust them with your money because they’re regulated and have a seal of approval.
Pave Bank is built on two big changes happening in finance. First, the shift of financial services to the blockchain. This includes emergence of stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets makes money traceable, composable, and programmable. You can put rules on money that codify counterparty risk through smart contracts. For example, in a property transaction, instead of using escrow, lawyers, and contracts, you could program a digital token to unlock funds only when the property deed transfers to your name — eliminating intermediaries and risk.
Second, this space is getting regulated. The time for cowboys is over. We’ve seen an industry go from “Wild West” to institutionalization with players like BlackRock, JP Morgan, and central banks including National Bank of Georgia and the Monetary Authority of Singapore deploying meaningful blockchain projects.
Pave Bank is building a corporate and institutional bank at the intersection of traditional finance and regulated digital assets, where clients can interact with traditional finance and money and digital assets within one regulated environment. We see this as the foundation for a world with regulated and programmable financial assets.
What are the exact problems that you are trying to solve?
Businesses currently can’t access regulated digital assets and traditional finance in the same place. Corporates and institutions face liquidity issues, counterparty risk challenges, and often must deal with loosely regulated entities rather than banks. Our clients are looking for a trusted partner where they can manage both traditional and digital assets with one point of contact, eliminating multiple intermediaries with their fees, complexity, and risk.
How important was Georgia as a location for the development of Pave Bank?
We needed an innovative market with progressive regulators. National Bank of Georgia launched a digital bank license and legislated that banks can operate with virtual assets and traditional finance — Switzerland and Georgia are among the few markets allowing this.
Georgia is also unique because it has the presence of international banks and the two largest banks are part of the FTSE 250. Furthermore, Georgia has traditionally had and continues to maintain strong ties to Europe, the UK, and the US which is helpful from a regulatory harmonisation and financial linkages perspective. We’ve seen innovative regulation, international connectivity, harmonization of policy with the ECB and other top-tier regulators. With Georgia’s rapid economic growth and strategic direction to become a financial hub, alongside the middle corridor development, it represents a strategic opportunity for not only us, but many other businesses.
Your last interview was about two years ago, and we’ve seen a dramatic shift in banking and digital with the rise of AI. How has this shift impacted your operations?
We built our bank from the ground up — our entire technology stack was built in-house. We did this specifically because we see the world moving toward AI in a rapid way, and that’s going to impact how you build and operate a bank. We’ve been very conscious about building in a way that allows us to integrate AI into different components, but in ways that meaningfully impact the bottom line and not just for the sake of saying we have AI.
Practically, this means we’ve been able to build a bank with just eight engineers in a year and a half with considerably less money than other banks. We’ve hired the smartest engineers because that’s where the industry is headed – a flight to quality over quantity. Because we built everything ourselves, we can shift rapidly and integrate AI into every component of our bank. We literally have multiple LLMs running actively on our platform. Today, this helps us make everything incredibly efficient and run a lean operation , tomorrow it will dramatically improve our cost structure and scalability. Looking forward, AI agents will become prevalent — traders, psychologists, health consultants, lawyers. When an AI agent wants to transact for you, it will need rules placed on money. This will be programmable and on-chain. You’ll set parameters on how your money can be used, and agents will operate within that framework.
How does Pave Bank ensure that its clients’ funds and assets remain secure while offering such a wide range of services?
First, the bank is bound by prudential oversight, which is extremely rigorous and complies with local and global standards. The National Bank of Georgia has a very strong banking supervisory department and is well regarded in the international banking community. Second, we are a full reserve bank—we hold all funds in highly liquid assets. If you give us a dollar, your dollar stays there at all times. This builds trust with our corporate clients who know their assets are always there.
What kind of businesses are interested in your services?
Banking is typically built for domestic markets with a focus on lending. We see a gap specifically for institutions and corporations that operate across borders. Our clients include companies in the digital asset space and those adjacent to it — family offices, hedge funds and market makers to name a few. They come to us because they can access traditional banking products, manage their corporate treasuries, and custody digital assets in a seamless and regulated way. This market is massively underserved. When building an early business, you’ve got to focus on a niche, crack that market, and offer the right products before expanding. This sector will deal with programmable money and smart contracts first, so we’re not only solving their needs today but creating the right customer base to innovate with going forward with programmable banking.
As a startup, would you describe yourself as a disruptor?
It depends on the context. Being a bank, it’s hard to say we’re a complete disruptor. Having said that, with the type of bank we are, I do believe Pave Bank is disrupting the market. We believe that in the next 5-10 years the entire banking system and capital markets will have major technological shifts.
What are some of your personal values that are reflected in the company’s mission?
This is a very important question – values are critical to an organisation. People’s skill sets will evolve, but values remain consistent. Values drive a number of things —how a business operates,relationships with the organisation, people’s approach to work. Some of the most important values for us are meritocracy, zero compromise on intelligence and a relentless drive to want to win.
Pave Bank operates from D-block coworking space. How does this environment affect your operations?
I remember my first time in Georgia when I was around 25. We were building the Tap and Pay system for TBC Bank before Apple Pay existed. I visited Georgia 8-9 times during that period, and our development used to take place at Rooms Hotel when it was new. I remember thinking then that it was such a cool spot in Tbilisi.
Fast forward to 2023 and when we were deciding where to base Pave Bank, someone mentioned that Rooms and Stamba were opening a coworking space. I met with the team and even though they hadn’t built it yet, I immediately said, “We’ll take it.”. The thinking then was that if they could even emulate 50% of the atmosphere, it seemed like a clear winner. The environment you work in affects how you operate. It’s important to be surrounded by good conversation and by people who are trying to make things work. Everyone here is building startups and trying to win – this is the mindset you need. This space normalizes the chaos of startup life, which I love.
We’ve grown from a small office with just 7-8 people to a room that now fits 40, and we expect to keep growing. We always joke in the office that Stamba is like Rome – the centre of so much happening in Tbilisi.
