Try to imagine that by posting a simple comment, whether negative or positive, on the forums of the major Italian financial portals or on the most used social networks, from Facebook to Twitter, the performance of the Stock Exchange could be affected. It seems absurd, yet the phenomenon exists: it's called "bullishness", and according to the experts it predicts with fair accuracy the behavior on the markets, in the following two days, of the security subject of the comment yours and hundreds and thousands of other users. This happened, for example, to Unicredit last January, after the news of the capital increase and the consequent discontent of customers, or again to the French bank Société Générale, already hit in August by the Kerviel scandal and moreover betrayed by an unfounded twitter that it made her lose 15% in just one day.
Stock exchanges and shares therefore influenced not only by banks and large institutional investors, but also by retail savers, one by one, who thanks to the amplifying power and the widespread diffusion of the web they too determine, in their small way, through the so-called emotional impact, the performance of a company, of an asset, of any financial reality.
This is what emerged in the third edition of the Salone del Risparmio, from 18 to 20 April at the Bocconi University in Milan, where more than one conference underlined the ever closer (and sometimes risky) link between finance and the web and the ever greater advantages of the digital economy, whose potential is manifold not only for small and medium-sized enterprises but for the entire Italian economic fabric.
On the other hand, the web is constantly growing in Italy, it is increasingly at the center of daily life and various parameters demonstrate this: 71% of the Italian population - between 11 and 74 years old - now has an Internet connection with a growth of users in the older age ranges; over 27 million people surf the web every month, a 12% growth over last year (Audiweb data, February 2012); the turnover of electronic commerce of products and services in Italy exceeded 8,1 billion euros at the end of 2011 (+20% compared to last year, data from Netcomm Politecnico di Milano, December 2011).
Great protagonists in this scenario are social networks in particular, for the already existing numbers and even more for the growth rates: Facebook has 850 million users worldwide and is growing by 38% annually, Twitter by the end of 2012 it will go from the current 150 million subscribers to 250 million. The microblogging site has the most influence on financial affairs: a curious research by Indiana University carefully studied 9,8 million tweets and came to the conclusion that if Twitter chirps little, the Stock Exchange is better off and closes higher. If, on the contrary, the mood is more nervous, the Dow Jones is often affected and closes with a negative sign.
It should therefore come as no surprise that the web is becoming increasingly important in the financial sector as well. Among buyers of financial products in Italy, 50% say that the internet is the first tool they turn to when looking for a product, and 35% say they have changed their mind about which financial product to buy following a search carried out on the web (source Consumer Commerce Barometer, 2010). Searches on Google are also growing: in 2012 searches related to finance in Italy increased by 24% and searches related to investment by 48% (internal Google research).
But most of all, there are 24 million users of online banking services, and 95% of transactions are done via the internet: the extreme ease of access to the markets is therefore creating a new class of investors, that of the ordinary citizen who with a click can not only manage their savings but also determine a trend of opinions which, when put together, influence the market at least equal to a capital increase or a quarterly.
And the revolution is only just beginning: soon – exactly, according to estimates, by the end of 2014 – all of this will even be done via mobile. In fact, overtaking is foreseen for that date: almost 800 million people in the world will have a connection on a mobile phone or smartphone, in Italy there are already 18 million and in 2015 they will grow by 122%. However, this will not mean the end of the home web, on the contrary: in 3 years it has been calculated that in advanced countries an agglomeration of 20 condominiums alone will generate the entire world network traffic of the year 1995.
Crazy numbers, but where will it end? Many people try to explain it at the Salone, from Google, present with its own stand, to Webank, the first bank behind the revolution: only online branches, no physical contact with the customer. Which, however, raises the first big problem: that of trust. Indeed, the new combination of finance and the web is viewed with suspicion by many, both insiders and the public: the frenetic circulation of data on the internet has now overtaken and replaced financial intermediation, with greater capillarity but not always as much competence. And therefore information, once absent and reserved for the few, is now "overloaded": it is too much, and too often linked to emotions. The first challenge to face, according to the unanimous judgment of the protagonists of the Salone del Risparmio, it will therefore be that of making this new market, with enormous potential, safe and reliable. Which, with these winds of crisis, is no small thing.
