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May 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 4
above, the narrative of Western banks bringing new technology and practices to the CEE region is less and less valid. Rather, western banks operat- ing in the region are increasingly concerned with exploiting local innovative potential and tapping into local fintech scenes than they are importing new technology to the region.
Overall, the CEE Fintech Atlas clearly shows the heterogeneity in the region. Certain CEE coun- tries are still characterised by a degree of digital maturity below those of other emerging markets. These countries could be interesting to fintechs already offering digital solutions in these markets. Here, the digitisation of the financial sector is more a question of financial inclusion and institu- tional advancement. In other CEE markets, digiti- sation is about the use of cutting-edge technology.
Overall RBI thinks that the Czech Republic, Rus- sia, Slovakia, Poland and Slovenia compare fa- vourably with “true digital champions” (such as China and Estonia). Ukraine, Belarus, Hungary
plus Croatia can be characterised as “regional digital flagship countries”, while Albania, Kosovo, Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria seem to be more “digital catch-up countries”. And Russia itself
is among the global leading emerging markets when it comes to digital usage in banking and the fintech absorption, while growth rates in digital banking in Russia and several other CEE coun- tries can well compete with the growth rates seen in China, Turkey etc.
That said, the diversity of the CEE countries in terms of their digital maturity also offers a lot of opportunities for leveraging the customer expe- rience gained in leading CEE markets in other countries or using technology and product life- cycles transnationally. Moreover, there is a lot of room for cooperation between the largest (West- ern) CEE banks active on several CEE markets and innovative local or international players or players with established digital solutions due to small size of several CEE markets when it comes to (potential) digital users.
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