Gyula Fater, OTP Bank Romania: “We have a really good opportunity to develop the economy through PNRR funds”

“The last two year were excellent from the perspective of digitalization for the whole banking sector. Some of the good results for banks were driven by digitalization. In our case, we increased by 70 percent the number of customers doing business with us in a digital way. We have invested a lot into digitalization. This is what we have to do; there’s no question here. But we still have to wonder if what we did was effective and whether we lost the connection to the customers, the personal connection with them. Is this the only and the right way to serve our customers? This is a question which we’ll be answering soon after this pandemic situation. A lot of developed tools and solutions will remain with us. However, I already see and feel that some customers are eager to go back to personal interactions with the bank,” Gyula Fater, CEO OTP Bank Romania said during Financial Forum 2022 organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“Talking about digital challenges, I think that the next challenge is to change our back office completely. This cost is a key issue. The developments in the banks in the upcoming years will not be that visible for the clients. All the steps in direct customer relationship have already been done.

Regarding customer interaction, we must find a way for the customers to feel good. We have the online account opening for more than a year. You can apply for personal loan fully online. What we have learned is that customers still want to complete some processes in the branch. There is a long way to go with the automatization in the back office.

The payment becomes fully digital. There are very different solutions for using our watches, phones to pay for something. This is available across several banks. This is a new era. Another one is the era of cryptocurrencies. In the case of cryptocurrencies, I don’t think there is a real added value in it. I don’t think cryptocurrencies is our future, but I might be wrong.

There are three important aspects for the future in the financial area. Firstly, We have a very stable financial market. We are ready to finance the economy. The second aspect is an external parameter, which is the inflation. The inflation is rewriting our future every day and I hope to see a decline of inflation. The third one is an internal parameter. We have a really good opportunity to develop the economy through PNRR funds.

Full recording of the conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mKuoh09GM4