Dr Koppány Tibor Lélfai
Chairman & CEO, Budapest Bank Zrt.
Teamwork can help in realising even the most ambitious plans In the history of Budapest Bank and the entire Hungarian banking sector the introduction of the instant payment system has undoubtedly been the most complex and difficult task, requiring the highest levels of discipline. On 2 March 2020, we completed a project lasting about 2.5 years, although this does not mean that the tasks related to the system have all been completed. The rollout enabled 24/7 operating times for electronic transfers, therefore we can rightly claim that the system has a major impact on several walks of everyday life and it will continue to do so thanks to the increasing number of additional services built on it. Owing to the digital services that have been widely adopted in recent years, it has become clear that bank customers increasingly demand solutions that are fast, simple, do not require personal presence and sometimes are not even tied to operating hours. In the banking sector, new solutions appear from time to time that fundamentally change our payment habits. The instant payment system stands out even among these. All stakeholders knew that this new payment solution would have a very positive effect on the customer experience and play a central role in reducing cash payments, therefore despite the great challenges of the project, the advantages clearly tipped the scales towards introduction. Bank experts had already known instant payments from other schemes already operating in some countries, but the foreign examples often did not involve such an ambitious project as the introduction in Hungary. The planned go-live was preceded by an effective preparatory
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