The change of activities of the Bank of Italy in the area. This is one of the requests discussed in the conference promoted in recent days by the Credit Federation of the CGIL entitled "Bank of Italy: present and future. Which institution for the country?“. One of the most interesting points of view is that the activities of the Bank of Italy branch network remaining after two rationalization interventions should be directed not so much towards new tasks and services of an operational nature, especially if already overseen by other institutions, but towards investment in information especially of a micro nature relevant to the profound and ongoing (and in some ways dramatic) transformations of the Italian society and economy in recent years.
In this regard, we can mention the increased social inequality, the growth of the fiscal black, the marginalization of old and new (migrants) citizens in the credit and savings markets, which places Italy in 27th place among the 30 main economies of the planet, according to the Inclusive Development Index (World Economic Forum, 2017).
Knowledge of the processes to increase citizens' trust in the banking system is also important. The initiatives for the protection of the consumer and of financial education they require to be carefully monitored through the critical analysis of methods and contents, to avoid their uncontrolled proliferation and the risk that they become the fashion of the moment.
Furthermore, since banks are committed to changing their decision-making and operational processes, aiming at exploiting the information assets inherent in customer relationships, the methods of evaluating these processes will also have to be followed through proximity structures, with tools adapted to the information needs of the credit supervision and oversight of the payment and financial asset markets, deeply impacted by the advent of SEPA and the Banking Union. The vital interest of themodernization of payment services, with the monitoring of the policies implemented by the operators.
Another reason to reorganize the information is represented by thestart of the fourth industrial revolution, which indicates a trend of industrial automation, through digitization of processes and network connection, which will assume an increasingly pervasive nature in relations even between small companies, in the management of private and local public services, in relations between citizens.
The traceability of these trends to local contexts is a natural matter of investigation for decentralized observers, such as the branches of the Bank of Italy, after a reorientation towards the cognitive modalities of the new data science (data analytics, big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, blockchain, fintech), in order to evaluate progress or delays of the national economy.
As mentioned, the renewal of processes for the governance of information it is also at the center of the changes in the banking industry, which is refocusing around the need to oversee the territory with renewed strategies and organizational structures.
It is the declared action of the major banks in the system: Bank Intesa recently took over the Banca dei Tabaccai, Unicredit is developing specific territorial repositioning policies, Monte dei Paschi created Widiba, one of the first Italian digital banks, Ubi is grappling with the integration of three local banks which, although shaken by deep crises, are still important for their respective territories.
Also the cooperative banking system is called to face the challenge of the territories through a new industrial configuration.
From legal-organizational framework desired by the reform in fact, it is not necessary to have a vision limited to the regulation of the interdependence between the banking parent company and the combined mutual banks based on the crossing of guarantees, on the distribution of managerial autonomy and on the maintenance of capital endowments. It would be a reductive approach, because it would translate into a tiring (and expensive) search for balances of a political nature, moreover without the reasonable certainty of not falling back into conflicts of interest, risk concentration and loss of cost control, as happened in the banking crises of recent years.
Il relaunch of cooperative credit above all, it is a strategic issue that can be measured through the ability to develop new governance and banking business algorithms, translating into new relationships with local markets, in response to the growing needs of households and small businesses for financial services.
Reducing the subjectivity of governance aims, first of all, to contain the risks of distortion/manipulation of information, which favor the affirmation of improper interests. The reform must be able to stimulate in the members of the central top management bodies and of each BCC a culture of service that leaves minimal room for individual ambitions, not only because control of the network will become more stringent, but also because the flows will have to be strengthened information to be transformed into sustainable business lines for the entire group.
Over time, the CCBs have reduced the "vertical" knowledge of their reference markets, pursuing apparently easier choices, induced by the building/real estate bubble of the first ten years of the century and by the extension of the areas of competence, which went hand in hand with the proliferation of branches.
This condition has at least two checkpoints.
The first is the low penetration of the payment services market in relation to both households and businesses (many pos, but few automated transactions, limited push for the diffusion of payment cards and products such as payment accounts, high and not always transparent tariffs, lack of incentive policies, slow operations between branches of individual CBs and the collection and payment services of the central platforms). The deficit is reflected in reduced knowledge of the underlying circuits, for which advanced payment services are the backbone of new economic/social relationships, with positive returns for growth. The reference goes to the relationship between smart payments (focused on mobile tools), smart services (e-commerce, e-government, social innovation) and smart communities (smart services produce basins of users, united by similar interests, in continuous expansion potential thanks to the multiplication of interdependencies). Their promotion is an opportunity for local banking, because it also stimulates the development of platforms (marketplace and sharing economy) for the sale of local products and services, opening them up to a wider audience of consumers and providing alternatives to disintermediation phenomena that will arise with the growth of direct relationships between people and between companies.
The second critical element is the reduced attention towards new market segments, perhaps less rich, but undoubtedly not lacking in opportunities and fully consistent with the characteristics of cooperative solidarity, such as the microcredit market or that of financial inclusion. Guidelines should be formed as soon as possible to act with more determination on the effects of the transformations underway also in the local branches of Italian society.
However, covering these gaps may not be sufficient if we neglect other trends, destined to establish themselves in the manufacturing, public and private services and banking sectors.
Corporate finance will probably see the growing weight of equity versus debt, as an effect of the redesign of the value chain, along which it will not be so much to evaluate the performance of each individual company, but rather the degree of integration of each in its own production chain. For the purposes of creditworthiness, forms of collaboration, including at an international level, links with innovation centers (universities, technological districts) and new distribution schemes must be valued.
The bank's contribution will not end with financial support for business strategies, but will have to contribute to the formulation of those same guidelines, playing the role of connector and organizer of integration processes.
The integration of technologies for business growth (for all the Internet of things) will be accompanied by the use of the cloud as a place of accumulation of information produced through increasingly sophisticated Customer Experience techniques, through internal sensors in production processes and data flows from other companies in the supply chain and from the market.
The ability to transform data into information and this into knowledge will take place with the construction of predictive models, to better evaluate the return on investment, exposed to a wider range of variables, with the progressive transition to blockchain technology for the security of transactions underlying the value chains. The renewal of banking IT systems is of vital importance, according to these new needs.
In the complexity that lies ahead, the reform of cooperative credit must therefore be constantly present the new role-playing game between the bank parent company, committed to dictating, with adequate programming tools, guidelines on credit business, organization, ICT, payments, and local components dedicated to adapting those addresses to the banking needs of the reference markets.
Priorities will have to be carefully established, starting with complete functional and technical interoperability of network platforms for collections and payments. Decision-making processes aimed at exploiting the competitive advantage of the renewed group configuration will be the cause and effect of the improvements that will be achieved.
The challenge aimed at enhancing the multiple implications of an industrial nature cannot fail to be compelling, also to put the movement's best professionals to the test.
