The Innovators 2026: Central & Eastern Europe

Speaking of artificial intelligence, CEE’s financial innovators moved beyond proof-of-concept and pilot programs in 2025.

AI became a core capability, embedded across credit and risk decisions, fraud monitoring, analytics, UX, and employee productivity, according to Vazha Beriashvili, corporate innovations lead at TBC Bank (Georgia), tells Global Finance.

The next step will be to use AI more systematically, he adds, “improving real customer journeys and making banks faster, more personalized, and more efficient.” Gen AI agents went mainstream across many CEE financial institutions in 2025, including AI agents that empowered bankers to build their own AI solutions (see Poland’s Nest Bank and Bank of Georgia).

Elsewhere, AI platforms were actively assisting CEE banks with lending decisions in 2025, including business loans (AIK Bank) and mortgages (Tatra Bank). Beriashvili expects real-time fraud prevention to become a focus of innovation in 2026 and beyond. “As banking becomes more instant, mobile-first, and AI-enabled, fraudsters are also becoming faster and more sophisticated.”

Banks in CEE will need to invest in real-time fraud detection, behavioral analytics, secure authentication, biometrics, and customer education. He expects to see more Open Bank initiatives in 2026 as well.

“The challenge for banks will be to use open banking to their advantage — by building stronger ecosystems and more connected services.” If not, institutions risk losing customers to fintechs, startups, and large tech firms.

All in all, “The next wave of innovation will not only be about making financial services faster and easier, but also about making customers feel safer when using them,” Beriashvili opines.

TBC Bank

Mini- and micro-lending programs are a mainstay of financial-inclusion initiatives, but they pose challenges. For instance, how does a bank document a borrower’s business activities, or even identity, in lieu of traditional credit reports?

Georgia’s TBC Bank uses AI at scale to verify field evidence, for example, by detecting reused or fake photos of farmland submitted to support a client’s declared business activity. Implemented last December, this initiative replaced a 100% manual process. The bank now processes about 6,000 microloan applications per month.

TBC has been a rapid adopter of new technologies. Last year, it also introduced biometrics to accelerate onboarding for new retail and business accounts and an AI-powered income-estimation tool that has made it easier for the self-employed to get consumer loans online.

OTP

OTP’s innovation lab helped develop one of Hungary’s first bank-focused large language models, which gauges customer intent across chat, email, and voice channels with near-human accuracy.

Using AI, the platform seeks to “understand” the goal, purpose, or need behind a customer’s prompt or voice message, rather than simply matching keywords, as in the rule-based approach used in most traditional call centers. This enables it to gauge almost immediately whether the user wants to retrieve a deposit balance or speak to a live customer-service representative.

For OTP, the benefit is reduced bank-employee handling time—and for its customers, a more consistent and less frustrating banking experience. The initiative was developed by OTP Labs, which leveraged cross-domain R&D, data science, and operational teams within the bank. The platform supports both written and spoken language and has achieved 96% classification accuracy, according to OTP.

AikBank | AikBank SME Smart Lending

Small and midsized enterprises (SMEs) in Central and Eastern Europe have historically faced impediments to securing bank loans. Serbia’s AikBank made the process easier last year by introducing an AI-enhanced SME lending system that uses business process management, robotic process automation, and 45 specialized AI agents working together to speed up SME credit decision-making. The system automatically routes stronger applications from fast-track—i.e., lower-risk—SMEs and more-complex credit cases, reducing time-to-cash for borrowers from 35 days to 10 on average and significantly reducing processing costs.

Bank Millennium | eSIM Card Purchase in Bank Millennium Mobile Application

Bank customers traveling abroad sometimes struggle to connect to local internet service providers. Poland’s Bank Millennium streamlined the process by introducing a new mobile app last year. Customers can purchase and install an eSIM card with a selected internet plan before they travel, allowing them to access the internet immediately upon arrival. The bank offers multiple options based on the size of the data package—from 1 to 50 gigabytes—and the length of travel time—7, 15, or 30 days.

Bank of Georgia | Enterprise-wide Generative AI Engine

Gen AI has the potential to transform bank operations at the most basic process level, but only if the technology is sufficiently adopted throughout the organization. Bank of Georgia built a full-spectrum proprietary AI infrastructure last year and trained 9,000 employees to use Gen AI platforms. By year’s end, AI adoption reached 55% of the workforce. To date, the bank’s employees have built more than 300 custom AI assistants, freeing more than 6,600 work hours per month for higher-value activities. The bank reports efficiency gains of 10% to 40% in quality management, anti-money laundering processes, and sales.

Nest Bank | NestStore & Employee Bot Creation (Full Scale-Up)

Poland’s Nest Bank is taking a bottom-up, community-driven approach to innovation. Employees act as co-creators of technology using the bank’s AI-powered Eagle Owl internal assistant and NestStore platform. Bank staff have independently designed and shared nearly 500 tailor-made AI bots to solve specific departmental challenges. Eagle Owl receives 25,000 queries per month from employees, and usage has increased fivefold during periodic “engagement challenges.” Introducing the assistant has harnessed abstract technology to deliver personal, tailor-made solutions that meet specific team needs.

Raiffeisen Bank Kosovo | AI/Virtual Assistant

Kosovo has made technological strides in recent years; and last July, Raiffeisen Bank Kosovo introduced the country’s first AI-powered, bank-based virtual assistant using large language models. The assistant can be accessed by customers on the bank’s website or through a mobile app. The solution addresses bank customers’ (particularly digitally active customers’) growing need for instant, self-service access to information. According to Raiffeisen, it has reduced waiting times, improved operational efficiency, and enabled customer support teams to focus on more complex and value-added requests.

Raiffeisen Bank Kosovo | BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) – the Next Evolution in Embedded Retail Payments

Online purchases surged in October when Raiffeisen Banka Beograd introduced embedded finance directly into the in-store shopping experience. With a QR scan, shoppers can initiate a loan application, then finalize it entirely online in less than 20 minutes without leaving the store. Each step of the process is automated, from authenticating identity and verifying income to rendering credit decisions and electronic signing. A particular challenge, the bank found, was redesigning workflows such that store agents need only to enter basic purchase data while customers complete the financing process themselves.

Sekerbank | Digital Onboarding of Farmers & Micro SMEs

Digital customer onboarding is more common today, but has been slow to gain traction among farmers. Many could really use it, however, given that they tend to live outside cities, far from bank branches. One impediment, Turkey’s Sekerbank found, is that existing digital-onboarding solutions often fail to properly identify farmers, lumping them together with general consumer segments. Last year, the bank introduced a digital-onboarding solution tailored specifically for farmers and micro SMEs, labeling them accurately from the start by drawing on public registry data, including Turkey’s Farmer Registration System; as well as sole proprietor records in tax authority databases.

Tatra Bank | Digital Mortgage

Applying for a mortgage can be complex and time-consuming, especially when one isn’t an existing bank customer. Tatra Bank reduced pain points last year by introducing a mortgage designed for nonclients. They can apply for and track the mortgage process entirely online. The system uses facial biometrics for identity verification along with automated income and liability verification. The only required physical interaction is for contract signing. In its first calendar year, the system generated 7,797 mortgage requests with an average requested loan amount exceeding €100,000.

TBC | AI Mini- & Micro-Loan Issuance Analyst

Verifying business activity is often challenging with microloans, especially for farmers. TBC Bank began using AI at scale for mini and micro loan issuance last year to verify farm field evidence by comparing new and historical photos of fields to flag deterioration, replacing a process that was 100% manual.

VUB Banka | Sofia: Behavior-Adaptive Conversational Intelligence

AI agents can upskill financial advisers and internal bank staff by providing personalized financial guidance, insights into consumer behavior, and dynamic conversational support. VUB Banka’s new conversational intelligence system, introduced last year, offers proof of concept. Dubbed Sofia, the tool handles questions from bank advisors such as “Why did this client’s spending in category X spike last month?”; “What are the most likely financial needs this customer will have next quarter?”; or “Which behavior-based triggers should I address in my next outreach?” Sofia’s answers provide context, reasoning, and supporting data, a comprehensiveness that traditional rule-based systems struggle to achieve.