MNB’s Student Safe project receives CBDC Initiative Award of the Year from London-based Central Banking Publications

14 November 2024

The jury of the London-based Central Banking Publications presented the ‘CBDC Initiative Award for 2024’ to the MNB’s Student Safe Initiative at the ‘FinTech & RegTech Global Awards’ event on 13 November. The Award honours outstanding innovation and achievements in the development of central bank digital currency. The Student Safe Initiative is the first central bank digital currency pilot project in the European Union made available to households.

The Central Banking Awards recognise outstanding performance and achievements within the global central banking community, based on the judgement of a distinguished jury of experts. The FinTech & RegTech Global Awards ceremony, hosted by one of the world’s leading professional portals for central banking topics, puts the spotlight on innovative initiatives in central banking. This year, the ‘CBDC Initiative’ award was won by the Student Safe mobile application, a joint project of the MNB and the Money Compass Foundation. Ádám Nyikes, Head of the MNB’s Digitalisation Policy and Regulatory Department, received the award on behalf of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank in Mexico City on 13 November. Mr Nyikes will share his views on the experiences and expected future directions of research related to central bank digital currency (CBDC) during the event’s technical programme.

The Student Safe mobile application was launched jointly by the MNB and the Money Compass Foundation in 2020. It aims to raise financial awareness in the digital world among 8–14 year olds. Renewed in May 2023, the application is operated by the MNB with the involvement of commercial banking partners. It enables school-age children and their families to perform forint-based financial transactions, while also sharing financial knowledge with young people through playful quizzes.

One of the key aims of the application is to introduce the world of money management to children via a first, free ‘digital wallet’, under parental supervision. The application gives users the opportunity to try out digital currency, transfer money to bank accounts, set savings goals and make QR code payments in a modern digital interface. Parents are also given the option to send pocket money on a regular or one-off basis, or even give their children assignments through the application.

The mobile application not only offers mobile banking functions, but also aims to continuously improve students’ financial literacy. Children can learn about finance, digitalisation and sustainability in a playful way by answering various quizzes. After successfully completing the quizzes, they can collect Student Dollars, which they can redeem for webshop vouchers.

Student Safe is a pilot project linked to CBDC research at the MNB, created in cooperation with Hungarian FinTech companies and commercial banks. The electronic money accounts of students and their parents are managed directly by the MNB, making the Student Safe initiative the first pilot project in the European Union where a central bank involves real users to gain experience required for CBDC research. The unique feature of the project is that it covers the entire process of issuing and redeeming CBDC, including customer identification (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) processes. The pilot project may help the Bank to face the challenges related to the future of money with valuable knowledge and technological readiness.

The ‘CBDC Initiative Award 2024’ is an international recognition of the contribution of the MNB’s Student Safe programme to research on CBDC. The programme not only directly develops the skills and capabilities of the MNB, but also provides the wider central banking community with useful knowledge and experience on this uncharted territory for central banks.

This is the second prestigious award the programme has won. In the 2023 Mastercard Bank of the Year competition, the Student Safe mobile application was awarded a special prize in the ‘Financial Solution of the Year for Young People’ category, together with its partner banks Raiffeisen Bank and SimplePay by OTP. The programme is also included in the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) database and the widely used CBDC Tracker register, and was mentioned in the IMF’s 2023 ‘Guide to Central Bank Digital Currency Product Development’.