Digital banking
UniCredit tower is an excellent symbol of just how enthusiastically the bank is embracing technological change. And unlike some of its competitors, it’s doing more than drilling down on specific areas like payments or blockchain. Led by Kütz, UniCredit’s Transformation and Innovation Advisory Board instead promises to build a “bank of tomorrow” that offers deep product knowledge as well as a range of advisory services.
“Banking will become more integrated with decisions that our customers take and evolve from a more product-driven approach to one that helps them achieve their ambitions.”
$12trn
The expected reach of the digital banking industry by 2026.
Cision 26
Read about the calibre of contributors to the advisory board and you get the impression that Kütz and her team are serious. There’s Dr Carlo Ratti, an architect and MIT professor specialising in how digital technology could change how people live in cities. There’s also Theresa Payton, ex-chief information officer at the White House, and Eileen Burbidge, a fintech envoy at Her Majesty’s Treasury. In other words, says Kütz, it’s important to gain insights from “outstanding professionals” even if they don’t have a background in finance. To explain what she means, she describes the role of Carlo Ratti, the architect and academic. “He can provide great insights on how our branches should evolve, and how we could best add value to the communities we are in.” She has similar praise for Katia Walsh, Vodafone’s former chief global data and AI officer, who Kütz notes has deep expertise using data to improve the customer experience. How is all this expertise changing UniCredit on the ground? One of the bank’s most interesting projects is its partnership with FinDynamic. Bringing together customers and suppliers, this Italian firm encourages them to collaborate. If customers are willing to pay an invoice in advance, they can benefit from a discount on the invoice amount. The most organised and proactive suppliers can even receive special plaudits from Bureau Veritas, a major inspection and certification service. No wonder UniCredit’s ‘Dynamic Discounting’ service recently won prizes from both the Italian Banking Association and the country’s president. At the same time, the bank’s partnership with Meniga is going from strength to strength. Among other things, UniCredit plans to roll out a feature letting users explore their carbon footprint. This focus on the planet encompasses other aspects of UniCredit’s digital overhaul too. In fact, one of the group’s most ambitious initiatives is its paperless programme. Apart from aiming to digitalise all documents that flow between the bank and customers, Kütz eventually hopes to “transform the group’s banking operating model into a fully digital format.” In practice, that means enabling sales and services digitally – think mobile apps or websites – and
generally encouraging remote communication from the customer service desk all the way to accounts. Obviously, these changes will hopefully save UniCredit time and money, but Kütz also expects that they’ll help the environment. As she notes, the paperless scheme has helped her employer save over 100 million sheets of paper in 2020 alone – the equivalent of around 12,000 trees.
Don’t keep the change
It would be wrong to imply that all this came easy to Kütz and her colleagues. An irony, in fact, of UniCredit’s successes is that it risks exacerbating digital inequalities among different countries – ultimately making change even harder. Put it like this: while the Dutch and their Nordic cousins are comfortable with digital banking, others are further back. In UniCredit’s mother country, just 85% of Italians have internet access. That might sound high but compared with Finland (94%) or Sweden (96%) the peninsula is clearly lagging. The challenges of these figures for people like Kütz are obvious. How, after all, can any bank release a new app if uptake will be so patchy between countries? That’s doubly true for an institution like UniCredit, boasting as it does customers everywhere from Bosnia to Austria to Lithuania. The solution, says Kütz, is to first test solutions in countries that are “particularly open to innovation” before branching out if they’re successful. For example, Meniga’s personal finance manager was first piloted in Serbia before spreading to other markets. Other problems, though, can’t be resolved so smoothly. Like every other multinational on earth, UniCredit scrambled to cope with the chaos of coronavirus. On this point, Kütz says the bank’s employees justified their wages from the first, showing both a willingness to go digital and an appreciation that sticking with tradition was impossible. “Now,” she adds, “it’s important for us to further support our employees through dedicated learning and development offers in line with this transition.” Watch Kütz gaze into her crystal ball, indeed, and you get the sense that the pandemic and its consequences will only speed up digitalisation – with huge consequences for punters. “On the one hand, banks will be available whenever and wherever our customers want us to be, providing a customised and seamless omnichannel journey,” explains Kütz. “On the other hand, banking will become more and more integrated with day-to-day decisions that our customers take and evolve from a more product-driven approach to one with a higher focus on helping them achieve their ambitions, and to support them even more in being prepared for big life events.” Quite a mission. Yet if anyone can manage it, it’s probably Kütz and her crew at the Transformation and Innovation Advisory Board. Let’s just hope virtual pub quizzes are consigned to oblivion by the time it happens. ●
Future Banking /
www.nsbanking.com
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