| CFTE co-founders were honoured to meet with partner Budapest Institute of Banking after two years of travel restrictions. This chance of co-organising these events in Hungary was the possibility to connect again with the Hungarian Fintech Ecosystem, and to speak of the recent development of Digital Assets. The “Future of Money” event hosted on the first day was an expert-driven series of presentations around Digital Assets, Transformation of Finance, Fintech and CBDCs. Gergely Fábián, Executive Director at the Budapest Institute of Banking (BIB) and Magyar Nemzeti Bank introduced the day, followed by Haydn Jones, Senior Blockchain Market Specialist at PwC, Narayanan Vaidyanathan, Head of Business Insights, ACCA, Gabor Balazs, Partner – CEE Accounting Advisory Leader at PwC, and finally Szombati Aniko, Chief Digital Officer at Magyar Nemzeti Bank, who delivered a unique keynote on CBDCs’ initiatives by the Central Bank. CFTE’s Co-founder Huy Nguyen Trieu also had the chance to make a presentation on “Should you care about Digital Assets” at the event. All the speakers took us through the role of banks in this transformation, the challenges, and opportunities of this exciting modern financial world. Key takeaways included: ● Szombati Aniko – How can CBDCs meet the challenges of the future? Aniko ended the insightful presentation with the key summarising points – through innovation, digital financial inclusion: not leaving anyone behind and sustainability. ● Huy Nguyen Trieu – The key message from the talk was that the “The question of timing is important. The technology and the ecosystem is there but the question is when are they going to converge and how.” ● Haydn Jones – He was able to summarise the the 5 key global crypto trends and had a memorable metaphor for them – “The five global crypto trends is like the genie out of the lamp, it’s hard to put the magic back in” ● Gabor Balazs – Another memorable anecdote was “Do not be an ostrich. Change is coming, and I guarantee you will be dealing with this very soon”. ● Narayanan Vaidyanathan – Finally Narayanan highlighted memorable statistics regarding the role of governments – “85% believe they should work with educational partners to improve skills and training and 86% believe building links internationally to learn best practices”. |
| Later in the day, the Fintech Roundtable was held in the recently inaugurated in the recently launched “Money Museum” to discuss the most important topic in Fintech. This meetup with the Fintech Community was very engaging, where the discussions with Tram Anh Nguyen, CFTE co-founder, János Pereczes, Managing Director at Magyar Bankholding, Szombati Aniko, Chief Digital Officer at Magyar Nemzeti Bank, Viktor Bodnar, CEO of Benker and Huy Nguyen Trieu, CFTE co-founder were expertly moderated by Barnabas Malnay, Partner at SmartWare.tech. Huy Nguyen Trieu delivered a speech on the opportunities that are present in the Fintech industry and the jobs offered. He also heightened how there are a lot more success stories locally. “It was harder to create success stories in places that were not the hub. This is not the case anymore.” and Huy Nguyen Trieu urged the audience that “Technology is eating finance”- but where do people fit into this? Tram Anh Nguyen, delivered a very powerful speech on the need to embrace the digital era in order to promote diversity and inclusion. A bet on digital is a bet on people, it is just a matter of including everyone in the conversation and building the right skills. |
| Discussion ranged from trust in technology versus institution, to transformation of finance, to the talent shortage and the competitive position of Hungary. It was really impressive to see how it is developing in the country, and that explains why there were 3 Hungarian Fintechs selected for Finovate Europe this year. The Central Bank of Hungary’s digitisation agenda is forward-thinking, and demonstrates how the industry can work together to create value. The Central Bank’s Digital Officer Szombati Aniko presented their framework used for implementation of the CBDCs, the work has been shared as part of the research paper on “CBDCs in emerging market economies” to show how it could support digital financial inclusion. Finally, Tram Anh’s point was unanimous that one of the biggest challenges in digital transformation that institutions face is the talent shortage as the competencies and skills are changing. Institutions, tech companies and startups but also governments struggle to attract or retain talent in order to fuel their growth. |
| Therefore, CFTE’s mission is continuously broadening as more people need to understand the world of Digital Finance and Fintech, and alignment between different stakeholders, from governments to startups, is key. |
About BIB (Budapest Institute of Banking):
The Budapest Institute of Banking’s vision is to become an internationally recognised financial education institution and market-leading financial education provider in their domestic market through their high-quality, modern, innovative and experienced-based learnings.
About CFTE:
CFTE is a global knowledge platform in digital finance that aims to liberalise education by making learning about the biggest technologies and trends in finance accessible to anyone. We help people build skills to transform their careers with courses that go beyond traditional learning. At CFTE you can learn from those steering the biggest developments in the financial sphere – from global CEOs to disruptive entrepreneurs hailing from Starling Bank, UBS, Mastercard, IBM and other large institutions. To help meet every learner’s goals, CFTE offers Specialisations to get certified in any area of digital finance as well as continuous learning material to stay on top of the latest trends in digital finance 365 days a year on THINK. From beginner to master, at CFTE there is something for everyone.
Contact details:
Press Contact: press@cfte.ecucation
Partnership Contact: partners@cfte.education
