AikGroup CEO, Razvan Munteanu, spoke at the Governors’ panel on building resilience for local economies and highlighted that convergence with the EU, regionalization and prudent and diligent management are key factors for business sustainability at challenging times.

The financial sector is—and always has been—the backbone of the economy. In sync with a world changing ever faster, banking is confronted with continuous novelties, whether in the form of new demands from customers, crises, or new ways of delivering financial services. Disruption is the sign of the 21st century. In recent years, we have moved from one global disruption to another: a pandemic, energy crisis, inflation and interest rates increase, climate transformation and geopolitical repositioning. The technology leap forward—from artificial intelligence to private space exploration to the boom (and bust) of crypto – is both fuelling accelerating change and allowing our industry to cope with it. This is a new economic ecosystem, where the only constant is accelerating change.

In such a world, our challenge is to accept the uncertainty, ambiguity and contradictions of a fast changing environment. In such a world, we can only be successful by embracing change and developing the agility required to adapt fast.

Banking evolves almost daily, even if at its core it remains a business centred on the same three fundamental pillars: we take money, we move money, we give money. In doing so, we need to adapt rapidly our models to respond to customer demands for speed, simplicity, and adapted solutions to their exact context. The result is that new ways of doing banking appear, and old ways are either abandoned or converted to reflect the fast-changing world we live in. You either evolve or you fail. Branches continue to be there but their roles and formats have changed significantly since the beginning of the millennium, focusing more on sales and advisory and pushing traditional transactions to digital self-service. Technology is at the core of banks’ competitiveness, payments become faster with simpler origination methods, data processing is key and every banker claims a digital-first approach to customers’ interactions.

What gives traditional banks an edge in this shift is continuity. We bring trust, reliability, and regulatory experience. Neobanks may win on speed and slick interfaces, but traditional institutions win on resilience. In an industry strictly regulated and rightfully so, the result is a convergence between the traditional and tech approaches. The future is hybrid: banks adopting agility from – and enabling it through - tech; FinTechs learning the depth of banks’ control environment. At AikGroup, we are fully aware and embrace this new reality.

Our strategy is anchored on being a major universal bank in the region, achieving scale we consider indispensable for the continuous adaptation to a changing world. We therefore must be able to serve very diverse customers: different generations with different habits, customers who prefer cash and customers who are fully digitized, savers and borrowers, progressives who like to experiment new ways and conservatives for whom changing the ways they consume financial services is a challenge. We build systems where cash access cohabitates with Apple Pay and Google Pay, where visiting a branch works alongside low-friction digital platforms.

To reiterate - disruption is the sign of the 21st century. Nothing else has recently been labelled as disruptive as AI. However, spoiler alert – AI has been woven into the fabric of banking for years — from scoring models to contact centers — quietly driving efficiency and smarter targeting of our customers.

But we’re only getting started. As AI evolves, we expect a surge in speed, scale, and impact. Think hyper-personalization, where products can be adapted in real-time through micro-variations based on data-powered predictions to create an approach relevant to each specific individual. That is not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach - it’s ‘your-size-fits-you’.

Before AI, the buzzword of the industry was blockchain. Though it has (wrongly) become synonymous with crypto currencies, where we are yet to see broad and legitimate use cases, the technology itself has has been around for a while and has genuine potential. Also some serious catching up to do. Distributed ledgers could democratize access to debt and capital markets for both smaller companies and smaller investors. That’s access. That’s inclusion. That’s putting capital at work. In today’s volatile geo-political circumstances, that could be growth.

However, let’s be clear: tech isn’t the answer on its own. Every transformation in history has been human-led. Tools help. But the real shift? It starts with mindset. You don’t transform your business by installing new software. You do it by rethinking how you work, serve, and lead. At the end of the day, technology alone does not transform a bank. Strategy does.

Despite all this technological change, the main role of banks remains the same: to protect money, to move money, to put money to work.

The Southeast Europe region is constantly changing, but what’s encouraging is this: the region is becoming more interconnected. Cross-border trade, capital flows, and convergence—especially through the EU integration process - are making our markets more vibrant than ever before.

Individually, we are small. Together, we are a market with potential. What we need now is a banking ecosystem that understands local nuance but thinks regionally.

At AikGroup, that’s exactly our path. We are already a strong force in Serbia and Slovenia, and in process to acquire Hipotekarna Banka in Montenegro. We are entering markets with a deep understanding of local habits, needs, and expectations. That is what makes us more than a financial player—we are a regional partner.

Our growth and presence in multiple countries across the region gives us a particular advantage: the ability to serve customers seamlessly regardless of political borders. This is not just about geographic reach—it is about combining the local expertise, infrastructure, and customer insights of each market into one cohesive platform. By integrating the experiences and operational strengths of our subsidiaries, we can offer more resilient, diversified services tailored to the needs of clients who operate—or aspire to operate—regionally. At the same time, the strength of our combined balance sheets allows us to support larger, more complex transactions, provide better capital allocation, and enhance financial stability across the group. In today’s interconnected economy, that kind of regional synergy is not a luxury—it is a competitive edge, and we are building our future on it.