MKB boasts new digital system

MKB has implemented Oracle Flexcube, a core banking solution that has been adopted by more than 600 financial institutions around the world, as part of a broader restructuring project to streamline its internal and customer-facing operations and provide customers with more personalized services across multiple channels, according to a press release sent to the Budapest Business Journal.

MKB’s stated aim is to reduce its go-to-market time for new services such as corporate and retail lending, as well as digital-only services, and to manage customer requests more quickly and easily, the statement added.

“It is not every day that a historically conservative medium-sized player commits its resources to modernizing its systems, changing its culture and taking a leap towards digitalization,” said MKB CEO Ádám Balog. “It is through the reliability of partners like Oracle and the management of our stakeholders that we were able to make this move in such short a time,” he added.

Despite comparatively fewer resources than major global banks operating in Hungary, MKB said it achieved its digital transformation in just two and a half years. The average deployment for projects of this scope typically takes between four and five years, the press release claims.

The transformation, however, has not been completely flawless. MKB closed down all access to its systems from June 29 to July 5. Accounts were not accessible online, and bank offices were closed. After the opening, many customers were unable to make bank transfers and the bank was not taking phone calls, news portal index.hu reported.

On July 10, MKB Bank issued a statement saying that “given the increased amount of customer contacts, our bankʼs communication channels are temporarily not accessible at the usual level of efficiency.” The bank indicated that “a narrow layer of customers, in the case of certain services,” would temporarily experience slower or limited administration, and asked for the “understanding and patience” of customers.

Meanwhile, Balog announced last week that he has sold his share of 10.76% in MKB Bank for an undisclosed amount. Balog held his share through a complicated chain of firms and has sold it to Tamás Szemerey, cousin of György Matolcsy, governor of the National Bank of Hungary (MNB), index.hu reported.