HUNGARY: FINANCE
From Hungary’s first digital bank to growth beyond borders.
Éva Hegedüs, Chairman and CEO, Gránit Bank
When Gránit Bank launched in 2010, the idea of a fully online bank was revolutionary and traditional banks relied on branches, queues and paper-based operations. But Gránit Bank’s co-founder Éva Hegedüs envisioned a different future: “My vision was clear and bold—to build a bank based on digital innovation, driven by the belief that customers need and expect simple, fast, transparent and low-fee banking with an outstanding user experience,” she recalled.
The challenge was enormous. The bank started from scratch with no established client base, only 25 employees and no core banking system in the middle of a post-crisis environment marked by deep mistrust toward financial institutions. Fifteen years on, Hegedüs’ vision has proved forward thinking and highly successful. Gránit Bank, now Hungary’s eighth-largest bank, has pioneered innovations, and grown to nearly 400 employees, over $4.7 billion in assets and hundreds of thousands of clients. It has also consistently outperformed the country’s sectoral averages for growth, profitability and efficiency. The appeal of Gránit Bank’s digital model and its sustainable growth have been recognized by investors.
The bank’s 2024 listing on the Budapest Stock Exchange was Hungary’s largest initial public offering in 25 years to combine a major capital increase with an IPO, which attracted significant international interest. Furthermore, the scalability of Gránit Bank’s model makes it possible to deliver the same seamless mobile banking experience anywhere in the world, without the need for physical branches. Its international expansion began in 2024, when it entered the Romanian market as the first Hungarian bank to offer cross-border digital services.
“Innovation is part of our DNA,” said Hegedüs. “We were among the first in Europe to introduce video banking and we’re now leading the way in harnessing the power of artificial intelligence. Our generative and agentic AI-based virtual assistant Gránit Guru supports clients 24/7 with personalized advice, loan solutions and financial calculations.”
Sustainability also lies at the heart of Gránit Bank’s operations, demonstrated by the fact that it has been carbon neutral since 2020, and it invests in digital education too—a cause that Hegedüs regards as one of her most important personal missions. As digital transformation and AI continue to reshape the global banking landscape, Gránit Bank is not only building the future of finance, it is redefining what a modern, trusted bank can be.