POST EVENT- “The future of banking: technological trends reshaping the industry”, October 16th, 2020

21 Ottobre 2020

Dear Members and Friends of the CCIC,

The webinar “The future of banking: technological trends reshaping the industry”, which has been organized by China-Italy Chamber of Commerce CICC and supported by the Consulate General of Italy in Canton, the Consulate General of Italy in Hong Kong, and the Italian Chamber of Commerce Hong Kong - Macao, took place via Zoom, on October 16th, 2020.

The speakers who took part of the event were:

Paolo Bazzoni, CICC Chairman
Enrico Iaria, Vice Coordinator of the Innovation and Technology Working Group (I&TWG) of CICC
Vincenzo Antonetti, Head of Network Development of Innovation Communication, Culture and Marketing of Innovation of the Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center
Savino Damico, Head of Fintech Ecosystem Management and Monitoring, Innovation Department, Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A.

The webinar was moderated by Vittorio Oliva, Vice Coordinator of Innovation and Technology Working Group (I&TWG)of CICC and Head of Italian Coverage of the Hong Kong Hub Branch of Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A.

The event explored how the Innovation Functions of an International banking group are interpreting their “roles”, in order to stay ahead of competition and at the same time to support Customers also allowing the scaling of primarily Innovative and Technologically-driven start-ups and SMEs in Host Countries including China.

For also CICC Chairman, Paolo Bazzoni, “Innovation is the key success factor” and companies and the banking industry, being business partners, have to work together, in order to come up with innovative and business-oriented solutions. He also stressed that the CICC can support in achieving these goals.

In fact, the CICC has already established an Innovation and Technology Working group (I&TWG) with the mission to enhance competitiveness of its Members and collaboration between and among the enlarged Italian and Chinese “Corporate Systems”. In this regard, Enrico Iaria, Vice Coordinator of the I&TWG of CICC, in its welcome speech, highlighted the 3 pillars upon which the activities of the I&TWG are predicated being basically: i) the promotion of and subsequent adoption of “state -of-the-art” technological solutions; ii) on-and-off field support to Italian Institutions and Institutional-led technological initiatives and projects in China and conversely to Chinese Institutions and Institutional-led technological initiatives and projects in Italy; iii) Information via engaging learning contents and the adoption of digital / virtual platforms and means.”

Moreover, the speakers focused on two main contexts where to apply innovation: digitalization and fintech.

On the one hand, Vincenzo Antonetti stressed out the importance of digitalization and digital technologies in the banking sector. He took as an example that the top 5 companies in the world are technologies giants and they are present in different sectors related to the financial field as Tencent, Alibaba or Amazon, putting pression on banks. He explained how this implies that nowadays new players are conquering the global market, and innovation together with digitalization seem to be the right solution to remain competitive. He also stated that Intesa Sanpaolo still has a strong international footprint, because of its great value and customer based strategy, as well as the ability to establish links with other banking institutions, also through outsourcing and circular economy.

At last he mentioned China as one of the most attractive countries for Intesa Sanpaolo for several reasons. In fact, according to Antonetti, the Greater Bay Area can be considered the new Silicon Valley, Hong Kong is the best place where to start a technology business and Shenzhen is overtaking Israel as a “Start-Up” country.

On the other hand, Savino Damico dealt with technology that will transform the way financial services will be delivered within the next years. He considered fintech as a tool which provides best solutions for customers and to improve the efficiency of internal processes. He specified that fintech can work differently in several business areas such as blockchain and Artificial Intelligence, even considering the amount of money invested in such technologies over the last years.

According to Damico, partnerships and collaborations to assess and use the Fintech Ecosystem at a global level are fundamental for building national and international ecosystem network: that permit to recognize in advance technologies and solutions, having a high quality rate and comparing and sharing information and project ideas. Also the European Central Bank and the European Commission are proceeding in this direction, evolving their Regulatory Framework in order to boost the digital market.

Lastly, the speaker explained some practical uses of Artificial Intelligence in Intesa Sanpaolo, such as news scanning, Marketing Propensity Intelligence, Prospect Targeting and Self-Driving Finance.

The event ended with questions, moderated by Vittorio Oliva, that primarily focused on Antonetti and Damico’s speeches about why China is attractive for Italian and International companies, and how Open Innovation and Open Banking are defined and declined by and within Intesa Sanpaolo Group.