Big interview €1trn+
Total assets of Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s biggest bank.
the answer can be gleaned from Intesa’s history. Though the giant is charging down the digital racecourse like everyone else, it also has rather more experience in ones and zeros than some of its peers. Launching a ‘mobile first’ strategy a few years back, the bank recently saw its app ranked Europe’s best. In 2021, meanwhile, a third of Intesa’s products were sold digitally. At the same time, the bank’s relative maturity may explain how it can juggle so many projects at once. Beyond Isybank, for instance, Proverbio and his team plan to weave cloud technology throughout their business, partnering with Google to develop a cloud node. That is echoed by other tricks, notably working with Proverbio’s old home Accenture to analyse customer financial data in real-time. Nor is Intesa merely going digital for the sake of its accountants. Like many institutions, the bank is using digital stakes to mend the planet’s fences, a process Proverbio characterises as a twin transformation. “In this context,” he says, “it’s important not only to transform the business model and to make the operating model more efficient – taking all the development and innovation opportunities offered by new technologies – but also to make sustainability the main driver of transformation of an organisation.” Certainly, Intesa has plenty of green-friendly planks to hand, notably around saving paper and automating low-value activities through chatbots. All the same, the bank’s executives are obviously conscious that digitalisation is far from a perfect solution. As Proverbio concedes, for all the good it can do, new technology is also projected to generate 14% of global carbon emissions by 2040. That fact, he continues, obliges corporations like Intesa to “find the balance” between exploiting the immense power of computers and making technology itself more sustainable – for instance by picking so-called green software. This subtle approach extends to Intesa’s work across the Italian economy. Beyond the bank’s €150bn partnership with Italy’s captains of industry, perhaps the most striking example is Motore Italia Digitale. Developed in line with the government’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan, it aims to use €4bn of credit to brighten the digital outlook of Italy’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Considering the peninsula’s 4.3 million SMEs comprise 80% of the nation’s workforce – even as just 40% of firms have made even modest investments in digitalisation – this seems sensible. “Encouraging, accompanying and speeding up the digital transformation of SMEs is strategic to support the modernisation and competitiveness of our country,” says Proverbio, noting that business, families and individuals all stand to benefit. Given his bank’s overall strategy, he may have added that
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Intesa Sanpaolo, one of Italy’s most energetic digital champions, surely does too.
Crisis management and the future From the shelling of Kyiv to the horror at Mariupol, the war in Ukraine has been impossible to ignore. Yet if the terrible human cost of Russia’s invasion has rightly taken up much of the world’s attention, the geopolitical and economic shock that has accompanied it has also forced quite the reckoning in finance.
Many of Europe’s biggest banks – among them UniCredit and BNP Paribas – rushed to divest themselves from hefty Russian exposures as the West imposed sanctions. Intesa Sanpaolo, for its part, revealed that its loans to Russian and Ukrainian clients amounted to €5.1bn, with some €200m lent to newly sanctioned entities. That was shadowed by personnel issues. Before the war began, and as part of its broad international obligations, Intesa employed 780 staff in Ukraine, where its Pravex Bank unit had 45 branches. Facing all this, it is unsurprising that the bank’s executives have had to act fast. “Quick reactions, and being prepared to handle exceptional events,” Proverbio says, “is key in emergency situations.” In a sense, though, Intesa’s bosses, huddled together in their offices, have been through the fire before – and recently too. With Covid-19 ravaging Italy’s economy and its ICUs with equal enthusiasm, Proverbio emphasises that the Ukraine conflict is just another crisis needing creative solutions and speedy execution. At the time of writing, Intesa Sanpaolo has yet to withdraw from Russia entirely (even if Russia has recently placed its own limits on Italian institutions operating in the country. But considering the bank promptly launched a scheme to cover the basic needs of Pravex staff, some now refugees, and donated €10m to support war victims in general, you have to think the pandemic is still fresh in its memory.
On a more personal level, you get the sense that Proverbio is able to act so flexibly thanks to the nature of his job. He may be Intesa’s CIO in all but name but, as he stresses, his title encompasses far more than information. “I think that this wider span is more and more necessary in order to increase the importance of technology in the bank of the future.” That is of a piece with how the role of Proverbio and his fellow CIOs is changing more broadly. As he says, he is now paid to do more than just keep the lights on and is instead expected to liaise with other leaders to become change agents across Intesa. In practice, that means developing a culture of engineering excellence and boosting internal talent, among other responsibilities. If only the Compagnia di San Paolo could come back and see it happen. ●
Future Banking /
www.nsbanking.com
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