The British Embassy Yerevan facilitated a partnership between the UK Open Banking Excellence (OBE) and Central Bank of Armenia, as a result of which the high-level delegation of OBE led by the Founding CEO Helen Child visited Armenia to deliver bespoke workshops for the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA). The two-day workshops on 23 & 24 May – fully funded by the Central Bank, aimed to educate the Central Bank around open banking standards, which will then be hopefully followed by a longer-term project targeted at designing and implementing open banking in Armenia with the input of OBE. Members of the delegation have played a key role in the development of Open Banking and Open Finance in the UK and have a strong track record of advising governments and regulators in major emerging ecosystems, including Brazil and Saudi Arabia.
The first workshop expanded into a conference engaging around 100 stakeholders from the Armenia’s FinTech ecosystem, e.g. FinTech companies, Ministry of High Tech Industry, commercial banks, crediting organisations, stock exchange, trade bodies etc. This was a very astute and collaborative approach, to ensure everyone is aligned, heard and buys in open banking/open finance from the start of this transformational project. The event was opened by the Deputy Head of Mission, Paul Morris and Central Bank Chairman, Martin Galstyan.
The conference was followed by a reception, which was funded from the DBT marcomms budget.Â
