Prague has long been the engine room for European fintech, providing the backbone for giants like Revolut and Wise, but it has seldomly acted as the region’s center of gravity. That changes from May 8–15 with Fintech Week CEE, an eight-day marathon designed to bring the region’s engineering talent face-to-face with the operators and investors who have actually scaled through a full market cycle.
What’s happening at Fintech Week CEE?
The week kicks off at Municipal House with the fifth edition of ETH Prague. In a move to bridge the gap between pure-play crypto and broader finance, the organizers have merged their flagship hackathon into a specialized “FinTech Track.” With over $48,000 in prizes on the line, the focus shifts from just Web3 to practical applications in payments, lending, and AI-driven compliance. It is a rare moment where the ‘move fast and break things‘ crowd sits at the same table as those building institutional rails.
By Monday, the tone shifts toward the institutional.
KB (part of Société Générale) is hosting a closed-door Crypto & Banking Day specifically to address the friction points where digital assets meet traditional balance sheets. This isn’t a high-level “future of money” panel; it’s an invitation-only session focused on the immediate utility of stablecoins and tokenized assets within a Tier-1 banking framework. It sets the stage for Tuesday’s main event, UnBundled, at Slovanský dům.
UnBundled is where the PR gloss usually found at these events gets stripped away.
The speaker list is a “who’s who” of people who have actually held the wheel, including Georg Hauer (ex-N26), Will Orde of Passion Capital, and Dann Bibas (ex-Wise). Perhaps the most anticipated segment is Founder Scars, where veterans like Michal Smida of RockawayQ and SumUp’s Stoil Vasilev will discuss the messy, non-linear reality of building in CEE. The day also includes a high-stakes VC × Founders session where early-stage startups pitch across the TradFi and DeFi divide.
The final stretch of the week balances public outreach with regulatory heavy-lifting. Wednesday’s “Love & Roboti” at Kampus Hybernská brings a festival atmosphere to the sector, mixing music with panels designed to make finance legible to the students who will eventually staff these startups.
The week concludes on May 14 at the Czech National Bank, bringing the entire ecosystem — founders, regulators, and incumbents — into one room to map out a unified roadmap for the region’s fintech future.
Chech full programme at fintechweekcee.com.