"We need to be fast and offer a simplified and personalised service to our customers. They don't care how complex the architecture is behind it. What matters to them is to make it easy, user-friendly and intuitive and to serve fully their specific interest. The formula to achieve that is - IT and business experts must work together in preparing the products. The customer should be with them from the beginning of the project and throughout the whole process of introducing the service. And most importantly - everything should be communicated clearly and understandably, both to the general public and to the employees who directly serve them", is the position on the future of the banking sector shared Christof De Mil, Country Manager of KBC Group in Bulgaria, Chairman and CEO of UBB during the Money Growth: Banking, Investment, Technology 2025 forum.

The event was held on 20.03.2025 in Grand Hotel Millennium Sofia and was organized by the economic weekly newspaper Capital. In the discussion panel "How Banks Can Become the Winning Organizations of Tomorrow", besides the leader of KBC Group in Bulgaria, also participated Mark Strauss, founder of Dr. Strauss & Partners, Prof. Dr. Georgi Dimitrov, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Evrotrust Technologies and Rumen Radushev, Chief Digital Transformation Officer, General Manager Retail Banking and Member of the Management Board, Postbank. The discussion was moderated by Filip Genov, Founder, F27.

Christof De Mil said he is optimistic that the country's banking sector will continue to develop successfully and highlighted its most important competitive advantages, which are a good basis for future development - customer confidence, size, innovative solutions and physical presence close to customers. "I am not afraid of competition from fintech companies in the local market, I see them as that much-needed challenge to us that will drive us to improve our services faster and better".

The panelists agreed that banks in the country have enough resources and customer trust and with the help of technology-driven innovationsy and the right methodologies, they can upgrade their services by becoming an integral part of their customers' ecosystem, significantly improving the customer experience and focusing on personalised customer needs and behaviours.

The Money Growth: Banking, Investment, Technology 2025 panel with their opinions and speeches on the various topics of the forum included - Dimitar Radev, Governor of BNB, Daniel Gross, Director of the European Policy Institute, Bocconi University, Max Lambertson, Senior Economist, Mastercard Economics Institute, Goran Angelov, CEO, IBS, representatives of the banking and financial sector, stock exchange, technology companies and others.