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bne Tech
April 26, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 23
CEE Fintech Atlas: Old narratives are changing, innovations may flow now from East to West
Gunter Deuber of Raiffeisen Research in Vienna
After nearly three decades since the end of the socialist experiment many countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have made enormous progress, but they are still catching up to their western peers. But not in fintech, which has been embraced by entrepreneurs of Emerging Europe. Austrian bank Raiffeisen International attempts to capture the vibrancy with the publication of its CEE Fintech Atlas.
A collection of small states, the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) often looks fragmented and insignificant to outsiders. But the region has been booming for several years and contains some of the most vibrant economies on the Continent. Some regions within these countries and the leading cities have already overtaken the EU average levels of prosperity. How can we really capture the business potential of the CEE region?
Analysts at Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) have been devoting themselves for years to
a more in-depth analysis of the local banking sectors in CEE. RBI has now published its first CEE Fintech Atlas that brings a new insight on the development of the countries in the region.
The study turns several of the "old narratives" in the CEE banking and financial sector upside down. While Western European banks are still big players in the established banking business, in fintech the situation in the CEE region is very different.
The West has no clear starting advantages over the CEE region in fintech, as was the case at
Many countries of Emerging Europe have taken the lead from the west in fintech.
the beginning of the banking sector reform over 20 years ago. In this respect, some of fintech's locations in CE and SEE are at least as developed Western Europe’s offerings, and in some cases they are already well ahead of the West. Russia stands out as a leader in the fintech and a top location for fintech innovation. Ukraine is also performs surprisingly well in the CEE Fintech Atlas, despite all its economic and political problems.
In concrete terms, the CEE Fintech Atlas analy- ses factors such as the number of local fintechs operating in a given CEE country and the local fintech financing volumes. The results are then compared with the respective country data on the status of digitisation in the individual CEE banking markets (also in comparison to Western Europe and other leading emerging markets). In figures, this means, for example, that there are signifi- cantly more national and locally active fintech companies in Russia (189) than in Austria (87) and important Central European countries combined (Czech Republic: 87, Romania: 49, Hungary: 39). Ukraine is also included in the CEE Fintech Atlas with an impressive 80 local fintechs. Only Poland can keep up with Russia (171 national Fintechs).
Regarding the most important regional fintech investors, there are only two western players among the top 10 (from Austria and the USA), while here there are four players from Russia. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Turkey (with two significant investors) are also in the top 10 here.
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