CEC Bank, one of the largest retail banks in Romania, becomes one of the first banks to commercially launch features based on open banking in the CEE region. In the Romanian market, CEC Bank and Banca Transilvania, the market leader, having launched a similar feature in its NEO platform in September 2020, are the only players capitalizing on the implementation of Revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) by connecting to data from other banks.
PSD2 regulatory framework makes it mandatory for the banks to open access to their own banking data through APIs, enabling secure connectivity and integration to any kind of digital application. Romania becomes one of the few countries in the CEE region with two banking players driving adoption of open banking in the local marketplace.
With the new implementation in the CEC Bank, project developed by ASEE (Asseco SEE) in cooperation with Finqware, all bank’s customers can view from now on, their accounts balances and transactions from 9 other top banks and financial institutions. The list includes the largest banks in Romania: Banca Transilvania, BCR, Raiffeisen, BRD, Unicredit Bank, ING, Libra Bank, Alpha Bank, but also Revolut.
The ASEE Mobile Banking application that is making all of these possible was upgraded with a new feature for CEC Bank mobile application, in order to provide the bank’s customers the possibility to get account information from the banks previously mentioned. This will offer a seamless user journey, allowing authentication through the same screens and experience, the users have when accessing directly the other banks. With the aggregated accounts in the CEC Bank mobile application, the clients will be able to view them in a dedicated menu for accessing all accounts.
With the help of the bank connectivity middleware from Finqware, CEC Bank can now provide its customers with access to all main banks in Romania. The multibanking feature launched by the financial institution will enable its customers to securely connect all their other bank accounts into the CEC Bank mobile app. Thus, the end user can check the balance and the transaction history of his/her accounts with the other financial providers.
„This is a fast and simple way to obtain an aggregated view of their finances, at individual or household level,” Finqware says.
The feature currently covers 9 of the most important banking players in the Romanian market: Banca Transilvania, BCR, Unicredit Bank, BRD, Raiffeisen Bank, ING Bank, Alpha Bank, Libra Bank and Revolut.
„The ASEE mobile application used by CEC Bank is constantly upgraded and improved with the most advanced features available in the financial digital market. This latest open banking functionality added is the perfect example of the cutting-edge drive that ASEE provides, making CEC Bank one of the digital transformation leaders on the local market, aggregating the largest number of accounts currently available. This is the result of the constant collaboration with the bank and its partners while understanding customer needs and setting technology trends for financial services,” stated Adrian Nastase, Country Leader ASEE (Asseco SEE) Romania
“At Finqware we are true to our mission of putting open banking to work and improving the way people and companies manage their money. We are proud to work with CEC Bank as an innovation partner, powering open data consumption capabilities for the benefit of their customers. We are already working towards the next steps of our partnership, looking forward to implementing new PSD2 use-cases with the bank. Data driven business optimization is our common long term strategy, on top of consuming open banking,” declared Cosmin Cosma, Co-founder & CEO of Finqware.
“Digitalization is an important pillar in CEC Bank’s strategy and we are open to new technology that allows reliable, faster services and improved customer experience. Our omni-channel business model allows us to leverage our growth on both our brick-and-mortar network – the largest in Romania and new digital channels. With Finqware and ASEE, we brought the multibanking service from lab to market in record time, being able to launch the feature in less than four months. We are working closely with our partner on extending open-banking features to payment initiation services,” stated Mugur Podaru, Digital Director, CEC Bank.
__________
Finqware is a European technology company based in Romania, with the aim of putting open banking at work. Solving the complexities of open banking through its cloud multi-banking data infrastructure, the company aims to be a platform for innovation in FinTech with focus on Central and Eastern Europe. The company was internationally recognized for its technology with numerous awards, including a Seal of Excellence from the European Commission and was recently recognised as the only relevant player in banking data aggregation space in CEE by FT Partners. Finqware is also a member of RoFin.tech, the Romanian Fintech Association.
ASEE (Asseco SEE) is one of the biggest IT companies in the area of production and implementation of its own software solutions and services in the region of South Eastern Europe, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Andorra, Colombia, Peru, Dominican Republic, Slovakia and Czech Republic. The Company provides ICT solutions for various industry verticals including the financial sector, payment sector, public administration and telecoms. The company provides products and services within Payment business under PAYTEN name. ASEE Group operates in 23 countries and employs almost 2,900 people. More than 10 banks out of the 15 largest ones in southeastern Europe are already clients of ASEE.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
