This cooperation, which will take effect immediately, was announced at the Pioneers Festival that took place in Vienna this week.

“Young talent looking at digital banking from a completely new perspective - that is precisely what we need,” says Peter Bosek, the chief retail officer of Erste Group.

The cooperation between Erste Group and predictR was initiated at a “hackathon” organized by the banking group last year. A team of outstanding mathematicians, statisticians and developers who were still studying at the time managed to attract the attention of Erste Group's team there. This group of talented young people subsequently established the start-up company predictR, which in turn has led to a serious collaborative project with Erste Group. The goal of that cooperation is to determine synergies and generate entirely new customer service ideas. “With our digital ecosystem, we are able to implement such ideas quickly and without complications,” says Bosek.

Over the coming months, predictR will work on new digital customer services in close cooperation with Erste Group's Innovation Lab. These will become available to Erste Group's approximately 16 million customers in the future.