The Slovak Ministry of Finance has been building a connected ecosystem of information systems for over 20 years that manages the state's revenues and expenditures. The lecture summarized how these systems cooperate across audit, budgeting, treasury operations, customs and tax administration, and what goals their digital transformation pursues. The emphasis is on security, efficiency, and simpler services for citizens.
Key systems in practice: from treasury to taxes and customs
The State Treasury centralizes payment services and provides data for planning and accounting; it has over 2 000 clients, more than 5 000 active users, and processes over 100 million transactions annually with a volume of 18.7 billion euros. The Treasury debt system (ARDAL) manages approximately 90 billion in the portfolio, records 7 000 financial operations and 50 trading counterparties. The Budget Information System covers the drafting, approval, and adjustments of the budgets of the state, municipalities, and VÚC; it is used by 23 000 users and in 2023 recorded 143 594 budget adjustments. Central registers provide an overview of state assets (66 584 items) and receivables against individuals and companies (275 475 cases, 858 administrators).
The consolidation system ensures financial statements across 1 900 accounting units; it has 6 400 users and processes nearly 19 million transactions per year. The accounting of European funds aggregates all information on drawdowns within the established paying units and relies on a central economic system in the background. For citizen fees, eKolok operates with modules for cashless and cash payments; it has about 85 000 users, 30 million e-stamps have been issued, and the monthly balance reaches 18.8 million euros. The Financial Administration operates, for example, customs systems (37 500 users; 1.124 million transactions and 2.914 million processed consignments in 2023) and tax systems including eKasa and the eDane portal (813 000 users; 32 million filings in 2023).
Where the digital transformation is headed
The priority is to strengthen cybersecurity, including establishing a departmental monitoring center and unified incident management. The ministry wants to deploy artificial intelligence to speed up selected decision-making and support processes and make better use of big data analytics. Also key is the consolidation and scaling of the ministry’s private cloud at the level of infrastructure and platform services. Finally, payment automation and simplified processes are to accelerate the flow of money between the state and the citizen and increase transparency—just as eKolok already demonstrates today.
