Lóránt Varga
Head of Financial Infrastructures and Payments Policy Department, Magyar Nemzeti Bank
We dared to dream big I am not particularly good when it comes to naming the best of the best, or at least I can rarely give a swift and straightforward answer when people ask me about the best film I ever saw or my favourite dish and so on. But if someone asks me about the most influential decision and greatest merit of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank in connection with the instant payment system project in Hungary and its introduction, I reply, without hesitation or even a hint of doubt, that it was making it mandatory by regulation. In other words the fact that the system had to be joined by all Hungarian banks and other payment service providers right from the start, and since then all customers with accounts held in Hungary can automatically enjoy all the benefits of this modern service, exceptional even by international standards. It is hardly an overstatement that mandatory status had a major impact on everything and everyone right from the beginning, playing a central role in eventual success. However, the decision on legally binding character was not selfevident at the outset. If I had to capture in a single word what this required from the MNB, I would opt for ‘courage’. If I were allowed to summarise my thoughts in more detail, I would say that we had to be brave because we knew right from the beginning that mandatory status would set the bar very high for all the other stakeholders. Yet we could be courageous, because our determination was based on professional considerations. This trust in our judgement gave us strength to uphold our decision even amidst the greatest difficulties. Perseverance was indispensable, because it became clearer by the day as the project progressed that legally binding character increased the complexity and difficulty of the task to an extent that we could not have imagined at the beginning.
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