Hungary’s top bank launches brand new webshop – here are the details

Hungary’s OTP Group made an unexpected announcement yesterday: the financial institution will found a new webshop called fizz.hu. According to the plans, the online site will begin operation at the end of summer.

According to Forbes, the OTP Group announced the launch of a new webshop on Monday and began testing it yesterday among its employees. The announcement of the OTP Group said they aim to create Hungary’s best online webshop. Fizz.hu will operate as an online marketplace. Thus, it will resemble Pepita and Emag Marketplace.

You may think that OTP’s decision is madness since they must compete with giants like Emag and Vatera, which have decades of experience in the field. However, the bank does not only invest in the finance sector. They have already poured a lot of money into robotisation and the private health sector, just to mention two examples. Furthermore, they have ample amount of experience under their belt when it comes to the Hungarian SME sector or in-customer service. What’s more, they have the financial stability for such an innovation, Forbes argues.

Based on the media outlet’s information, the operator of fizz.hu will be OTP’s OTP Ecosystem Ltd. Therefore, it will be autonomous in the group. The core team of the new online webshop comes from Emag, while its CEO will be András Szőcs, who served as the e-commerce director of MOL before. MOL is the CEE region’s energy and fuel giant. Earlier, he worked for the Salling Group for five and Tesco for ten years. Forbes sent repeated inquiries regarding the new online webshop, but OTP said they would only provide further information later on.

Interestingly, OTP also intended to buy Tesco in Hungary back in 2016. The transaction would have been worth EUR 2.5-3 billion. However, the Hungarian government did not support the project which would have likely triggered conflict with Poland. The other interested party in the sale of Tesco Hungary was Tesco Poland.

Are you keen to learn more about OTP Bank? In THIS article, we wrote about their expansion in a Central Asian country. HERE we reported that the Hungarian government is unwilling to vote for additional aid for Ukraine until Zelensky’s administration regards OTP as a bank supporting Russia’s war against Kyiv. Hungary believes Ukraine’s relevant list undermines the bank’s international reputation.

Featured image: Sándor Csányi, the OTP Group’s CEO at a gala event.