UniCredit wins the gold medal at the eighth edition of Efma-Accenture Banking Innovation Awards 2021, with the U-City project. It is a gamification initiative that improves employees' knowledge of digital products and services, enabling them to become digital ambassadors for their customers. The awards ceremony took place on Thursday 18 November in virtual mode.
The prestigious award honors the best in banking innovation, based on three criteria: originality; strategic ability to generate long-term competitive advantage and return on investment; and adaptability for use in other markets and countries. The eighth edition saw a record number of applications, more than 800 from nearly 300 institutions in 73 countries.
The UniCredit project is the first online learning business game in support of digitization aimed at strengthening knowledge of the bank's digital services thanks to gamification. The objective of the game is to transform an imaginary city, making it a futuristic metropolis, "U-City", more digital e planet possible in order to win the game.
The initiative, launched in March 2021 and concluded in July, is part of the BEST4Digital project, dedicated to employees of the Italian UniCredit network. Participation was significant: in 100 days of play, over 2.500 employees generated more than 150 challenges and earned over 3 billion experience points, 5 gadgets and various prizes.
“We are proud to have won this prestigious award for the first time thanks to the U-City project, UniCredit's first learning business game, born from the collaboration of several aspects of the bank, such as business, communication and training who, working team have combined skills, innovation, vision and determination – he said Ilaria Dalla Riva, Head of People & Culture Italy of UniCredit. Digital transformation is a strategic goal for UniCredit. Exploiting the power of digitization and applying it at 360° in strategies, processes and services, in support of our people and our customers, is essential for us".
