Investments in innovation

The IT initiatives contained in the new 2023-26 Strategic Plan are intended to significantly accelerate the process of digitalizing and industrializing the Group’s services, which was launched under the previous plan, with the initiatives featured in the Digital Agenda which is a fundamental pillar for the strategic development of the new Business Plan.

Total investments of €230m have been earmarked for the next three years, 25% compared with the annual average of the previous Plan. These investments, which are consistent with the objectives of the new “One Brand One Culture” Strategic Plan, are intended to kick-start an organic transformation process across the business divisions and shared areas such as people and technology platforms, which constitute the foundations on which to consolidate the Group’s distinctive position.

An important partnership has also been signed with Founders Factory, a London-based venture studio and accelerator of early-stage startups, which aims over the next five years to invest €12 million (additional investment to the IT Plan's €230 million) in the acceleration of 25 fintech startups and the establishment of 10 startups from scratch, in synergy with the goals outlined within IT Plan 23-26.

Through this roadmap, the Mediobanca Group will be able to significantly upgrade its technology ecosystem and develop distinctive solutions compared to those offered by the market, thanks to the creation of new applications, the transformation of existing systems through the systematic adoption of innovative technologies and cloud computing solutions, and partnering with some of the most innovative players on the financial market, such as bigtechs and fintechs, as a driver to accelerate the innovation programmes.

Among the main areas covered by the IT Plan, a strong focus has been placed on the following actions in particular:

• Enhance the Group’s offering versus its clients, through innovative solutions that will enable a more effective and consistent customer journey across all channels (e.g. simplified onboarding processes, personalized services)
• Supporting the salesforce and operations units, through automation and AI solutions, to maximize the efficiency and scalability of the commercial activities, while at the same time reducing the cost to serve. For the Wealth Management division in particular, the development of a digital platform harmonized at Group level will be completed, which, by adopting new technologies and disruptive approaches, will maximize synergies between the divisions and make the investments more effective.
• Implement cross-divisional initiatives within the Group, with the aim of accelerating the systematic adoption of cloud computing solutions, and of strengthening the measures and solutions put in place to guarantee cyber-security. Among the cross-divisional initiatives, particular importance has been placed on the One Data Platform programme, which aims to develop the Group’s data architecture with a view to unlocking maximum value from business data and enhancing the predictive and real-time analytics capability, while at the same time streamlining the governance processes.

Cross-divisional initiatives included in the Plan which will be fundamental to support the transformation process include the Journey to Cloud, which is central to digitalizing and developing the Group’s systems, and proactively strengthening the cyber-security systems by design. A further decisive factor in the Plan will be the investments made in people, with new talent being hired and up-skilling and re-skilling processes for existing staff in new technologies.

All the investment choices have been made based on the conviction that technology and digitalization will be fundamental in order to offer services of the very highest quality.

The new IT Strategic Plan leverages strongly on innovation, while at the same time guaranteeing sustainability and business resilience over the long term and effectively addressing the transformation of the banking sector, meeting new client needs, regulatory requirements and the challenges posed by cyber-security.

The financial services sector continues to undergo profound transformation, primarily because of the new ways of interacting with clients and providing them with services that are emerging, and the regulatory challenges being posed as well.

The market trends currently in progress require further acceleration along the path to innovation already undertaken by the Mediobanca Group. We are witnessing the ongoing uptake of consumer trends and habits that represent a complete break with even the recent past, with new technologies advancing in so many sectors of daily life, including the financial sector; the proliferation of virtual worlds, blockchain technology, and the need to be connected at all times;  the growing focus on digital security and privacy issues; and the increasing use of robotics and artificial intelligence.

It is sufficient to think of the entry of new global and fully-digital players to the market, including from sectors other than finance, driving a profound change in the competitive scenario, and requiring a response featuring a distinctive approach to structuring the Group’s offering in terms of products and services.

In order to maintain a leadership position in the market over the long term, the Mediobanca Group needs to anticipate the trends that give birth to ideas that will change our way of doing business in the future.

In recent years we have been working hard to lay the technological and cultural foundations for innovation to be recognized as a tool for developing our business models, helping to increase the effectiveness of our problem solving, and to achieve our objectives.

Against this backdrop, we are pursuing a strategy which, starting with our Strategic IT Plan, is committed to responding to these stimuli, both internal and external, and an increasingly dynamic environment. We support the Group’s growth by developing the IT systems based on new approaches, and investing substantially in technology and transformation.

For example, we have identified cloud computing as one of the most important drivers of digital transformation and as an enabler of systems development. We have embarked on a process of gradual adoption to modernize our approach to technology. The objective is to move from predominantly “on premise” coverage to a “hybrid cloud” solution, streamlining the existing processes, and leveraging all the distinctive advantages offered by cloud-based solutions (e.g. use of on-demand processing capacity, networking and security solutions without infrastructure costs and without initial investments).

Within the Italian banking panorama, we have been one of the first banks to adopt cloud-based services as an area of strategic importance (CRM Salesforce in CheBanca!, ServiceNow as IT service support and management system), and confirmed our role as pioneers by developing an integral update of the Flexcube core banking platform using the public cloud in partnership con Oracle.

We consistently invest resources to consolidate and develop our synthesis systems and information governance, as well as improving our data quality, by providing instruments and processes to guarantee the consistency, thoroughness, integrity and reliability of data at both Legal Entity and Group level. Data management is a fundamental part of our IT strategy, and the importance of new technologies features heavily in our IT Strategic Plan, with the use of updated applications and infrastructure platforms to ensure cutting-edge technological support for the whole Group, enabling us to leverage on our information capital more effectively than would be possible using traditional instruments.