Accenture outlines the new retail banking model

The ninth edition of the Accenture Banking Conference was held today at the Accenture Customer Innovation Network (Acin), the annual appointment dedicated to the CEOs and C-Levels of the main Italian banks that offers a space for reflection and discussion on sector and outlines the characteristics of the bank in the future. The top management of the Italian banking sector took part, together with Mauro Macchi, CEO of Accenture Italia, and Massimiliano Colangelo, Head of Financial Services at Accenture Italia. Against the risk of around 80-100 billion euros of new non-performing loans in the medium term, Accenture’s proposal is a transition to new forms of retail banking based on sustainability and technological innovation. The new post-digital retail banking model, the theme at the center of the Accenture event, will have to be supported by two pillars: human experience and a more agile operating model. These are the elements that shape a new mode of bank-customer relationship, capable of merging the human element with the technological one. The new bank of the future, defined by Accenture as “Meta-Bank”, will therefore stand out for its performance. According to the global professional services company, Meta-Bank will see a doubling of the number of commercial interactions in retail banking, an optimization of 20% on the cost of the distribution network and 35% on that of the current operating model, as well as a quantity of products sold equal to three times the current one. This will earn the banks about 8 billion of operating margin, equal to 10% of the total revenues of the Italian banking system. “In a socio-economic context dominated by strong discontinuities and continuous changes, the banking system must balance investments in innovation and increasingly focus business models on the relationship between people, customers and data and evolve into a reality that, by placing technology center, dynamically transforms its way of being a bank while remaining relevant to the end customer “, said Mauro Macchi, CEO of Accenture Italy, who then added:” It is necessary to continue on the acceleration path started by directing growth towards models more innovative and sustainable that release long-term value for all stakeholders. “” According to our assessments, it will be possible to move from a model with a cost-benefit ratio of 115% to one with a cost-benefit ratio of around 70/75%. A governance capable of fully exploiting the cost structure created in the past, improving it and bringing it to a level of full efficiency, but associating it with revenues per customer higher than those typical of the current model “, declares Massimiliano Colangelo, Financial Services Lead of Accenture Italy, who continues: “Such an innovation represents a challenge of strategic continuity with respect to what has been built in recent years and at the same time of relaunching the productivity of retail banking, which until now has caused a slowdown in banking performance.” Accenture’s analysis, presented during the Accenture Banking Conference and carried out in collaboration with SDA Bocconi, involved the main Italian banking players and placed over 490 banking initiatives under the lens, for a value of approximately 1.5 billion euros of new investments in the period 2021-2022. The research has identified the key elements that characterize the Italian banking system in the last two years and that highlight the need for evolution in a post-digital era. The first evidence that emerged from the survey is that less than 20% of total investments are dedicated to disruptive initiatives, aimed at creating new products and service models, since innovation has a “double” cost to date. For Italian banks, creating true innovation involves having to invest in the adaptation of core systems as much as investing in innovation itself. Secondly, it has been seen that, although more than 60% of financial resources have been allocated in the evolution of service models and customer relations, this evolution has developed only in the direction of a digitalization that, separated from the human element , did not make it possible to achieve the expected levels of profitability. The third element that characterizes the current state of the Italian banking system is the issue of sustainability, which attracts 15% of investments, even surpassing the data sector. In addition, banks have sought to support their business by focusing on growth in margin from services and investing heavily in two core dimensions, wealth management and corporate banking. In retail banking, the investments made in the digital evolution have led to improved but still unsustainable values. The last of the evidences concerns the evolutionary plans for the next three years, which return a linear projection, with a banking sector that follows but does not transform the current scenario. Indeed, the Italian banking system looks to the future while maintaining a certain strategic continuity with respect to the key principles of development of the last ten years, without the intention of a real transformation and a systemic vision that allows it to invest in a balanced way in the areas of action of growth. For these reasons, in order to be able to respond to the challenges of the current scenario, banks must be able to innovate and evolve in a systemic way. Once again, technological innovation will ensure the expansion of relationship models beyond digital. In order for this transition to take place effectively, the client himself must also be educated and accustomed to the new models, so that the post-digital becomes, intrinsically, a new way of relating.