Reported live from UNCHAIN Fintech Festival 2026, Oradea Fortress, Romania. 17 June 2026.
Oradea Fortress has hosted many turning points in its long history, and this morning it hosted another.
Hosting in the event’s opening remarks was Gerd Bommer, founder and managing partner at Zoenara. “Mindset is part of your business model,” he told the room, urging everyone to “start in with a positive mindset into the conference today.”
Look around and you’ll see central bankers, bank CEOs, regulators and fintech founders from more than 40 countries, all in the same medieval walls for two days.
And that’s the point of UNCHAIN. Put the region’s decision makers in one place, and the partnerships and direction follow.
Back to the Centre of the Map
The first speaker reached back several centuries. Csaba Balint, a board member of the National Bank of Romania, reminded the room that Oradea once sat on its own zero meridian, a reference point like Greenwich. The city was zero once, he said, and now it has come back as “the heart of the fintech ecosystem.”
And this worked as a neat metaphor for the festival’s whole pitch. The future of European finance runs through Central and Eastern Europe, not around it. A confident claim, and UNCHAIN has the growth to back it.
Just five years ago, the festival was a single tent. Today it fills the fortress. The branding has grown up too. The “Fintech Fortress” is now the “Finance Fortress.” UNCHAIN has become the place CEE finance comes to be taken seriously.
No Longer Catching Up
Then came the numbers. Catalin Cretu, Visa’s general manager for Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia, and the festival’s main sponsor, laid out the growth. 350 people at the first UNCHAIN. 700 last year. More than 1,000 this time. “That,” he said, “is how we grow in Central and Eastern Europe.”
Then came the line of the morning:
“We’re no longer catching up. We’re starting to set the direction.”
Ideas become projects, and projects become partnerships, and those, he said, can set direction “across Europe, if not the world.”
His second theme was access. For two days, the region’s top executives are in the same room as everyone else. “It’s all about access,” he said. He compared it to speed dating, and told the room to spend less time in panels and more time meeting people. The best ideas, he said, come from where industries meet, from finance and retail to mobility and agriculture. “The most impactful innovation happens at the intersection.”
The Thing Europe Keeps Missing
The local note came from David Achim of the Make It in Oradea initiative, one of the hosts. For him, the festival is a double celebration. UNCHAIN turns five this year, and it has grown up alongside Make It in Oradea, the two initiatives pushing each other on. The festival went from “a small tent” to three stages and more than a thousand attendees, he noted, while Oradea was named the fastest growing startup ecosystem in Romania (second time running). Five years ago, he reminded the room, almost no one associated the city with startups at all.
So, how does a festival like this land in Oradea at all? One word. Trust. It started, he said, “based on a discussion and based on trust.” Most people in the room had come to make partnerships and get their businesses noticed, and all of it, he argued, rests on the same thing. Then he turned it on the room, and the continent.
What Happens Next
Four very different voices, and the same message. A central banker, the Visa boss, a local champion, the festival’s own hosts. None of them said it defensively: CEE is done being Europe’s waiting room.
With that, the opening wrapped and the festival handed over to its keynote, former Polish prime minister Marek Belka. From here the agenda gets specific. Over the next two days the talk turns to the future of payments, banking and insurance, AI in financial services, and a run of country forums from Poland to Ukraine.
Follow MRKT 3.0’s coverage of UNCHAIN throughout the two days.
