Honesty and Transparent Management

Viktor Boczán, who has been the Chief Executive Officer of Provident Hungary since last year, returned to his home country from the Czech Republic to bring his diverse and cross-functional experience of more than 23 years to the company to help it achieve its growth-focused financial plans. He spent five years in top management positions in Romania and another five years in Prague, returning to the Hungarian organization from his country assignments in the region.
Provident Financial Ltd. aims to strengthen its position in the European and Hungarian financial sector by focusing on growth opportunities and continuing to provide high quality services to its clients. On the one hand, Viktor Boczán’s appointment continues the trend of having a Hungarian professional at the helm of Provident Hungary, and on the other hand, the company relies on the expertise of Hungarians in international management.

Viktor Boczán has spent nearly 24 years altogether at Provident. Explaining the reasons he recalls for choosing this company at that time, he tells Diplomacy&Trade that “in 2001, when Provident launched its Hungarian operations, I was very excited to be involved in shaping the quick loans market and the activities of the Hungarian subsidiary. I joined the company as a fresh graduate, and at that time, if you worked hard and had some flair for business, you could expect a fast career with the company. I started in sales, as a group manager, and it took me 13 years in total to achieve the status to manage the whole business in Romania as CEO. By then, I had already worked my way up through the ranks in the Hungarian business, and I still have the advantage of knowing every detail of our business, the challenges and the opportunities. When I returned to Hungary after ten years abroad, I was delighted to see how many of my old colleagues I could work with again, which shows the company's ability to retain employees.”

Knowing the customers
Over these more than two decades, Viktor Boczán has gained a wealth of experience in a wide range of professional fields. As to which of these he considers the most important, the CEO points out that everything he has learned has contributed to his ability to hold his own as a manager, whether abroad or at home. “However, I think the most important thing is the experience I gained in sales, where I had the opportunity to get to know our customers, to understand their situation, their needs and what Provident can offer them. The experience of dealing with clients on a daily basis teaches us humility and to value people who place their trust in us, time and time again. But, of course, I have also learnt a lot from managing my colleagues, no one is born a ready-made leader, every situation teaches us something new and I believe that with age we become better and more empathetic leaders.”

‘Playing on home ground’ again
For the last ten years, Viktor Boczán was first the CEO of Provident in Romania and then in the Czech Republic. He sees it as an important milestone in his career that he has now been at the helm of Provident Hungary since the spring of 2024. It is the same post as in those two other countries but this time, he is ‘playing on home ground’.
“I was very happy to return to Hungary last year after a decade in other countries and take over the leadership of Provident in this country. The years abroad taught me a lot, as I had to cope with a different culture, a foreign language, and even if there are many similarities between Central European countries, there are at least as many differences. Having arrived home, it was good to see familiar faces again, many colleagues had been recruited by me before I left and I felt that I had a very positive reception here. Although the challenges of recent years have also hit the quick loans market hard, I was able to take over a well-established and successful business from Botond Szirmák, who had led the Hungarian subsidiary as CEO for 16 years and is now in charge of Provident’s European operations. Our clients were also affected by the difficult years, so it was more important than ever that they could rely on us when a difficult life situation or the realization of a dream required some financial help. Customer focus is one of the greatest values of our company and I am very proud that we have consistently achieved a customer satisfaction rate of over 90%,” the CEO highlights.

Adjustment for the family
He adds that during these years abroad, he did not lose contact with the Hungarian business, as there is a good and close cooperation between the European members of the IPF group, thus, he was always aware of what was happening in Hungary. “Of course, the company has evolved a lot in ten years, but the foreign subsidiaries I managed also went through much the same evolution, so I was not surprised. Perhaps the transition was more of a challenge for my family, because I met my wife in Romania, she doesn't speak Hungarian, and for my 9-year-old daughter, it is the first time that she living in Hungary. She communicates mainly in English, although I have, of course, tried to teach her Hungarian as well. In the early days after returning to Hungary, I was busy getting to know the business in detail and getting back into the domestic business bloodstream. It may not have been easy for my family, but I think this year will be more balanced in that respect as well.”

Sports as inspiration
According to Provident's management, which supports sports, "the perseverance and dedication required to succeed in sports can be equated with those in business." As to how these have manifested themselves in his career, the CEO points out that “sports has been important to me since I was a child, and it's still very important to me to be able to exercise almost daily while working and raising a family. I used to do judo as a kid and I still love martial arts, which have taught me endurance – something also useful in business. There is no such thing that for someone, everything works out, every decision you make is success, you have to be able to move on after a failure, to carry on stronger and learn from your mistakes. Sports is a great platform for this, so I am very supportive of the relationship between sport and business.“

International umbrella
The Hungarian Provident subsidiary operates under the umbrella of International Personal Finance (IPF), a British-based international financial services business providing home credit and digital consumer credit to 1.7 million customers in nine markets. Viktor Boczán highlights his relationship with the international management and the business values that they consider important by stressing that ”the management of the IPF group is in close contact with the managers working in the international markets, and the European countries are managed by my predecessor, Botond Szirmák, so, of course, there is an excellent relationship. IPF is listed on the London Stock Exchange, so profitability is naturally very important, as the stock exchange will price it in immediately if there are problems. However, the group's leaders are also aware that the interests of their clients come first, and all business decisions are made in the spirit of the mission statement we set out four years ago to build a better world through financial inclusion. No profit motive can override that mission!”

Honesty and transparent management
Viktor Boczán is the boss of around 2,200 employees at the Hungarian company. Many of these people, as the CEO has noted earlier, have been with the company for over ten years. As regards his main management principles in dealing with the employees, he says he believes in honesty and transparent management. “The fact that Provident has an outstandingly high percentage of colleagues who have been with us for more than 20 years confirms that we are on the right track as an employer. Our open-door policy is not just a slogan, anyone who has been to our head office could see that even I don't have a separate office, I sit in an open space with the other directors and anyone can come to us if they have a question or an opinion. That's right, the time for ivory towers in management is over. I believe that credibility is the greatest value of leadership, so that colleagues feel that management is working for and for the customer, and if that is there, everyone is happy,” he concludes.