UNCHAIN Festival brought together in Oradea over 1,000 leaders from 40 countries to debate the most topical issues in the financial and tech industries. The Banca Transilvania Financial Group was represented by Aurel Bernat, Executive Director, Financial Markets and Investor Relations, Banca Transilvania, Vlad Micu, CEO, INNO Investments, and Alexandru Bratu, Director, Card Acceptance & Payment Solutions, Banca Transilvania.

Over two days, the agenda spotlighted the main trends shaping the future of financial services — from the adoption of artificial intelligence and the euro to instant payments, asset tokenization and the digital transformation of banks.



Aurel Bernat, Executive Director, Financial Markets and Investor Relations, Banca Transilvania

The Future of the Financial Industry in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

• The CEE economic region is, first and foremost, a geographical space with a rich history. Still, we need to acknowledge that we cannot claim a deep-rooted capitalist tradition in a region that has only embraced this system over the past 30 years.
• For a long time, this part of Europe lacked capitalism as well as freedom of movement and expression. That absence was reflected in a highly fragmented banking system.
• While today there are large banks operating in the region that can be considered meaningful competitors to Western Europe, the challenge remains in how they relate to each other, in the structure of the economies and, implicitly, of capital. Essentially, all CEE economies depend primarily on Western Europe. In Romania’s case, the dependence is especially on the economies of France and Germany, and to a lesser extent on neighboring countries.

Adoption of the Euro

• From a citizen’s perspective, membership of the euro area is undoubtedly an advantage: processes are simpler and faster, and prices are easier to understand. On the other hand, the Maastricht criteria remain essential. Two are particularly important: a public deficit below 3% and public debt of no more than 60% of GDP. Ultimately, however, meeting these conditions also becomes a political matter because, in theory, they should be natural objectives for any economy.
• Another relevant aspect is the GDP size of countries joining the euro area. Most states that have gone through this process, while performing very well and joining the European Union, are relatively small economies. Even the largest economies in the region, Poland and Romania, remain below the thresholds that would place them at the top in Europe. Poland’s economy exceeds EUR 1 trillion, and Romania’s is approaching roughly half that level, with positive estimates for the coming years, but at present sits below EUR 400 billion.
• In this context, I would say these economies still retain a certain degree of flexibility, as, at least for now, having their own currency is a competitive advantage.
• Therefore, while euro adoption is attractive from a citizen’s perspective, from a governmental and economic standpoint the discussion is far more nuanced and remains, without doubt, open.

Vlad Micu, CEO, INNO Investments

Managing Capital in the AI Era

• INNO is one of the newest subsidiaries of the Banca Transilvania Group and focuses on alternative investments. We operate across multiple asset classes and also manage an alternative real estate investment fund.
• It is often said that AI engines can reach accuracy rates of up to 94%, but only when data is transparent and of high quality. In Romania, unfortunately, we operate in a context where these very elements are still lacking. We face transparency issues and inconsistencies in historical data, which makes adopting AI algorithms more difficult than in other markets. Even so, we continue to improve efficiency by using automated valuation methods. We are able to obtain results faster and, in certain cases, at lower cost. In addition, we have tools that help us generate better forecasts.
• As long as we correctly define growth criteria and track them consistently, we can better understand the optimal moments for trading, whether buying or selling. We can also screen the market faster and more efficiently, which, obviously, directly impacts decision quality.
• Human expertise remains essential. In most cases, algorithm-generated results need to be validated. So I would say technology does not replace the human factor; it complements it. At least in our case, business models and decisions still rely to a significant extent on human expertise, while AI is used to increase efficiency and execution speed.

AI and the Human Factor

• I don’t think there is a clear answer or a hard line between AI and the human factor. There is no fixed boundary between the two. Looking across the full spectrum of our activities, we see two extremes. At one end, there are repetitive, redundant processes automated through RPA, where human intervention is minimal. That’s a first reference point. At the other end, we have activities such as structuring agreements or negotiating transactions, where AI has limited relevance and the decision is essentially human.
• Between these two extremes lies a broad area of processes, assessments, market analyses and forecasts where AI and the human factor interact in different proportions. In fact, it’s not about separation, but about complementarity. AI is a valuable tool, but the human factor remains instrumental throughout the decision-making process.

Alexandru Bratu, Director, Card Acceptance & Payment Solutions, Banca Transilvania

The Payments Ecosystem of the Banca Transilvania Financial Group

• We are talking about complexity. Over time, we have built this payments infrastructure step by step, over many years, and today we see a highly complex ecosystem.
• Merchants’ requirements remain extremely simple: they want payments completed in two to three seconds, comprehensive reporting, and integration with all their systems, and we have always been a client-centric company, helping merchants with the solutions we built together that they truly needed. However, with every new payments infrastructure we developed, we inevitably added layers of complexity — and even points of redundancy. Because, yes, on paper or in Figma everything looks simple. But in real-time, especially in large-scale operations, things are anything but simple, and that’s where experience and execution make the difference.
• We always talk about operational excellence, but every new process brings ever more complex operations. Our role is to manage that complexity so the merchant doesn’t have to. At the same time, we need to be careful: if we add too many processes that don’t scale sufficiently, this becomes a problem and will inevitably be reflected in a lower adoption rate.
• We operate in a solid ecosystem that we are building from both the issuing and the acquiring sides of payments. Banca Transilvania has the largest footprint in this area, with an ecosystem covering a wide range of integrated products, but this position also comes with a very high level of responsibility for how we continue to develop it.

The New Paradigm for Payment Systems

• We are always ready for what’s next. As I said, we constantly build on the existing infrastructure. For us, the acceptance side is an important driver in developing this payments infrastructure. We are not necessarily talking about a paradigm shift in payment types, but rather about a continuous, almost business as usual process of building and extending this highway.
• At the same time, we must continuously fine-tune what we have already built: the commercial partnerships we have, the services we deliver, the ecosystem we serve. That’s why we always prepare, with great responsibility, the entire infrastructure, the entire logistics, because the ability to be ready at all times makes all the difference.