Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A. - Digital Transformation Strategies

Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A. - Digital Transformation Strategies

Summary

This report provides insight into Intesa Sanpaolo's fintech activities, including its digital transformation strategies, its innovation programs, its technology initiatives, its estimated ICT budget, and its major ICT contracts.

Intesa Sanpaolo SpA (Intesa Sanpaolo) is a diversified financial services group that offers a range of banking solutions to private, SMEs, and corporate institutes. Its portfolio of offerings consists of accounts such as current, saving, and deposit; an array of loans for mortgage, personal needs, house, and corporate needs; unit-linked insurance solutions; card products such as credit, debit, prepaid, and business cards; bonds, mutual funds, saving plans, and other investment products. As part of its related financial services, it provides a range of services such as international cash management, credit for cash, collection and payments, leasing, funding, consultancy, portfolio management, trading, investment, Internet banking, mobile banking, and online payment services.

In May 2023, Intesa Sanpaolo launched new Governance Area dedicated to innovation and information technology in line with its 2022-25 Business Plan. The new Governance Area incorporates market best practices typical of tech companies, highlighting company's strategy including investments in artificial intelligence, cloud, cybersecurity, and the new digital bank, while ensuring supervision of group-wide information systems. Alongside the existing talented individuals in the company, the structure will recruit approximately 2,000 IT professionals, and offer them with constant professional development and growth over time, making Intesa Sanpaolo an innovative and attractive employer.

In December 2022, Intesa Sanpaolo signed a joint venture agreement with Digital Magics to invest EUR15 million in fintech, insurtech, and proptech start-ups. The investment vehicle Apside, in which Intesa and Digital Magics will be 50-50 shareholders, will invest in around 20 companies with an average investment of EUR250,000 each and possible follow-on investments for a total invested value of EUR15 million. The goal of the partnership is to select investment opportunities in the start-up ecosystem for growth acceleration, identifying solutions that bring innovation and competitiveness to the banks’ offerings.

Scope

• The transformation efforts by Intesa Sanpaolo rely on technology solutions, such as Intesa Sanpaolo Mobile app. The launch of the digital bank IsyBank, to serve its customers, and artificial intelligence (AI) lab in Turin, bear witness to Intesa Sanpaolo’s commitment to digitalization. This commitment is not only aimed at customers, but also at finding solutions for transforming internal operating model. This includes the digital platform for bank’s analytical cost management and digital process transformation project. The Group also promotes dialogue between industry leaders, fintech’s and academic research centers, in addition to supporting development of innovative entities globally, through its venture arm Neva SGR.
• Intesa Sanpaolo has been exploring potential use cases of blockchain. It has established a team consisting of experts from different business areas of the bank to analyze the impact and benefits of the technology. The aim is to develop products and services around blockchain through collaboration. Intesa Sanpaolo collaborated with R3, a provider of distributed ledger technology, to develop the proprietary Corda platform and explore the benefits of blockchain. Intesa was also a founding member of the International Association of Trusted Blockchain Applications.
• Intesa Sanpaolo is adopting a hybrid cloud strategy by leveraging Cisco Intercloud Fabric to offer customers secure connectivity across multiple clouds. With Cisco, the bank is creating an integration hub, allowing the bank’s business clients to connect with public clouds securely and flexibly at low infrastructure costs. The bank also signed agreement with TIM and Google for migration of significant part of its information system onto Google’s cloud services, as of December 2022, 83 applications have been migrated and 27 new applications have been created directly on the cloud.

Reasons to Buy

• Gain insights into Intesa Sanpaolo's tech operations.
• Gain insights into its tech strategies and innovation initiatives.
• Gain insights into its technology themes under focus.
• Gain insights into various product launches, partnership, investments and acquisition strategies.