A new bank was born. It's called Aigis (from the ancient Greek αίγις, "egis"), it uses artificial intelligence and directs its business towards SMEs and families. The main office of this fintech, born on the initiative of the managing director Filippo Cortesi (a long experience in the banking sector, initially in Dresdner Bank, then aggregated in Commerzbank, and subsequently as founding partner of Wave Securities), is in Milan, but with an eye directed in particular to the German market, where thanks to a series of partnerships it already has 10.000 retail customers (out of a total of 15.000). In Italy instead credits disbursed to SMEs are already over 300 million euros, while the volumes of factoring, ie the advance of trade receivables, approximately 500 million.
How is Aigis Banca's proposal innovative? Because it makes use of technologies based on automation and artificial intelligence, not only to assess the creditworthiness of customers, but also to guarantee rapid response times to all those entrepreneurs who intend to request financing, through online management of relationships and of banking transactions, regardless of their physical presence in the branch (but Aigis still has 50 employees, with an average age of 35). In short, the bank, which also has offices in Rome and one in Bari, specializes in financing for SMEs and collects consumer savings, offering remunerated current accounts and deposit accounts with interest rates defined as "advantageous".
“In a world of profound and continuous changes, our idea of a bank is very simple – he commented Filippo Cortesi, CEO of the new reality -. Indeed, Aigis Banca was born with a very clear vision: to facilitate entrepreneurs and at the same time guarantee excellent returns to savers who choose our products and services. Our solutions are based on the use of artificial intelligence technologies, to ensure the highest level of efficiency and reliability. However, there is not only the technological aspect: the bank's work always responds to criteria of ethics and sustainability shared by a young, expert and highly motivated team”.
Aigis Banca adopts a model focused on financing SMEs leveraging public guarantees (MCC and SACE) that the State makes available and on specialist solutions such as factoring, the ideal tool for
optimize the management of working capital. It also makes use of strategic partnerships with market-leading fintechs "in order to obtain the maximum level of efficiency and speed, the flagship that distinguishes Aigis' offer from the rest of the banking market", according to the founders. As for governance, Aigis Banca was born from the reorganization of GBM Banca spa: today the majority shareholder is the English private debt fund Metric Capital Ltd, with 75,36% of the capital, while another English fund, Novembre UK Ltd, owns 21,43% and other shareholders 3,21% .
