Milan, 08/06/2022 — The destination is the speedboat bank. Italian banks are transitioning from digital transformation to digital cooperation, a process that has artificial intelligence (AI) as its primary driving force. According to a panel of 700 bank customers of different ages interviewed by Excellence Consulting, only 20% of over 30s and none of under 30s are satisfied with the digital services of their digital bank. For the implementation of innovative financial services, 92% believe that AI could be decisive, 51% consider the construction of service ecosystems in partnership with other fintechs to be important, while for 25% tokenization (transformation into blockchain, ed) of financial assets. This trend supports what comes from the USA and is at the basis of the choices of the two main Italian banks: Intesa San Paolo and UniCredit.

Traditional banks (so-called incumbents), after a decade of investments in digital transformation, often declare themselves disappointed with the results obtained, often through digital applications that simulate old analog processes. In Italy it is also important that many banks share their core banking systems managed by consortium companies. The tendency of top management, rather than building the digital strategy in partnership with their central system suppliers, is to launch new digital banks relying on innovative market platforms and build the future on them – as indicated in the recent industrial plans of Intesa San Paolo and UniCredit – focusing on new generation core banking applications, with the aim of subsequently converting the current legacy systems. In the USA such banks are called speedboat banks. The offer of these, initially developed to serve a niche of customers, can subsequently be extended to increasingly large slices of customers, until the new digital bank becomes the prevailing organization within the organization of the traditional bank.

In the detail of the research by Excellence Consulting, “From digital transformation to digital cooperation”, although 56.6% of those interviewed state that digital banks, to date, have achieved a good level of digitization, only 20% of over 30s and none of the under 30s is fully satisfied with the digital services received. There is therefore a margin for growth and intervention, especially with regard to the younger segment of the population. Numerous international analyzes show the importance of artificial intelligence in outlining the characteristics of the digital bank of the third millennium. Research by Excellence confirms this trend: 92% of those interviewed consider AI crucial for the implementation of innovative financial services. Not only that, for 51% of the interviewees it will also be very important that these banks know how to build supply models based on service ecosystems that also include partnerships with other fintechs, while for 25% the tokenization of financial assets will be a further key element of innovation in which digital banks will have to invest.

“Our research – declares Maurizio Primanni, CEO of Excellence Consulting – highlights how we can consider ourselves at the dawn of a new phase of digitization of the banking industry. We must realize that we have now passed the digital transformation phase and are fully entering a new market phase that we can define as digital cooperation, in which traditional and innovative operators will confront each other, but often also collaborate, for the development of new digital financial services. The systematic use of data science & analytics techniques and artificial intelligence will allow new generation digital banks to overcome the limit of a too passive commercial approach, to be able to present themselves to their target customers in an ever more proactive way, with chatbots and avatars who will offer customers customized solutions based on their needs. In this context, it will be very important to quickly achieve conditions of profitability and economic self-sufficiency, choosing the offer lines with the highest business potential. Among them, the international experiences underway suggest paying particular attention to some issues: the buy model now pay later, integrated into embedded finance offers; hybrid digital investing models; the digital mortgage; the offer of custody and advisory services for investments in crypto-assets.”