Magazine: Technology brings major transformation to the Hungarian financial services market

Dr. Zsolt Selmeczi-
Kovács
CEO
GIRO

Dr Zsolt Selmeczi-Kovács, CEO of GIRO Zrt. highlighted in his presentation that the introduction of instant payment in Hungary brings advantages to both consumers and businesses. It is enough to think of sole traders working as a hairdresser or mechanic that can get their money not in cash, but in the form of an instant money transfer in literally just seconds. The system is also the perfect choice for retailers for whom card payment was too expensive to introduce.

Five from the 10 startups selected as the most promising digital financial solutions for the FinTechShow see the future of fintech in instant payment. The jury decided that in 2019 the best of these was PénTech’s rapid financing solution. This service involves no paper work and for user businesses it takes less than 24 hours to overcome liquidity problems arising from late payment – informed head of the company Benjamin Berényi. Gabriella Biró, head of department at MNB informed in her presentation that 6 from 36 Hungarian credit institutions offer the service of 100-percent online opening of a bank account, without the client having to go to the bank. The first such service – a video chat solution by MKB Bank and GRÁNIT Bank – debuted in July 2017. Thanks to a new regulation introduced by MNB, from 2019 a selfie is enough to open a bank account or to apply for a loan from our homes.

Since 14 March 2019 banks are obliged to run a test environment that gives access to payment-related bank account data, and from 14 September for service providing purposes they must grant access to their APIs for authorised service providers. Last year’s FinTechShow winner startup Aggreg8.io gave conference participants an insight into the market opportunities created by open banking. Mastercard’s representative talked about their open banking supporting service, which connects retailers and third-party financial service providers with banks. //