Page 45 - RBI FIntech Atlas 2018

Recent numbers suggest that the outlook for CEE markets remains promising. The proportion of the population using digital payments has risen by
10 to 15 pp over three years. Growth rates are similar to those in “fashionable” digital markets
such as China and Turkey. And it should also not be forgotten that the penetration of conventional banking has increased by 10 to 15 pp in the last 7 to 10 years in the CEE Region alone. Overall, we expect the number of digitally active bank customers in the CEE Region to grow by 20 million (to 170 million) in the coming years, despite a slight fall in population. To summarise, we tried to break down 15 CEE countries into groups in terms of current digital penetration
in banking and the gap between conventional and digital penetration rates. The Czech Republic, Russia, Slovakia, Poland and Slovenia compare favourably with “true digital champions” (such as
China and Estonia). CE countries plus Ukraine, Belarus and Croatia tend to be “regional digital agship countries”, while Albania, Kosovo, Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria are “digital catch-up countries”. In other words: Some countries can compete with leading international digital (emerging) markets while others offer a lot of catch-up potential. Some CEE countries are characterised by levels of digital maturity below those of other emerging markets. These countries could be interesting to players already offering digital solutions in these markets. Here, the digitisation of the nancial sector is more a question of nancial inclusion and institutional advancement whereas, in other CEE markets, digitisation is about the use of cutting-edge technology. And nally, there are opportunities for leveraging the customer experience gained in leading CEE markets in other countries or using technology and product lifecycles transnationally.
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AL KO BA RO RS BG UA HU CEE HR RU BY SK CZ PL SI
Digital penetration* Conventional penetration*
*Digital: used the internet to pay bills, to shop online, received digital payments (% of population 15+), dotted line shows CEE average; conventional: account, debit card ownership (% of population 15+); correlation coef cient between both variables at 0.93; source: World Bank, RBI/Raiffeisen RESEARCH