ČNB Lab

In recent years, the Czech National Bank has significantly opened up to modern technologies and innovations that can help it achieve better outcomes at lower costs:

• They enable the redirection of expert capacity from routine tasks towards strategic and conceptual thinking.
• They enable the central bank to keep pace more easily with the world around it – the financial, regulatory and business environment – which is rapidly changing, digitalising and innovating. This is essential for the effective fulfilment of its tasks.

However, the CNB aims to go further. Simply catching up with changes in its environment is not sufficient. It strives to be among the leaders in innovation, to enhance – within its statutory mandate – the conditions for living and doing business in the Czech Republic, and, not least, to position itself as an attractive employer for candidates from both home and abroad.

As the number of innovative projects at the CNB continues to grow – with many others already in the approval or planning phase – the central bank has established the CNB Lab innovation hub. The platform brings together the CNB’s activities in the area of innovation and modern technologies. It provides a single point of access to information on everything the central bank is doing to succeed in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, digitalisation, data-driven business and decision-making, and modern payment methods.

The CNB Lab platform is structured into three main modules: AI & Data Science, Digital Assets Pilot, and Payments, under which individual projects are grouped according to their thematic focus.