UK-based core banking software provider Thought Machine has been selected by Italy’s largest bank Intesa Sanpaolo as it looks to develop a “state-of-the-art”, cloud-native digital bank as part of its future-facing digitisation plans.
Intesa Sanpaolo is Italy’s largest bank by total assets
The move forms part of Intesa Sanpaolo’s 2022-2025 Business Plan, which sees the Italian banking multinational cutting structural costs through “significantly investing” in technology and growth.
Created in partnership with Thought Machine, the new digital bank will handle multiple currencies and serve multiple countries, with plans to go live over the next two years.
After 2024, the tech infrastructure developed with Thought Machine will be rolled out to serve other Intesa Sanpaolo individual client segments beyond mass market retail clients, such as the bank’s affluent segment.
The plans for a new digital bank to serve customers outside of branches will reduce costs and cater to the approximately four million Intesa Sanpaolo customers already utilising digital-first services.
These customers alone bring in approximately €200 million in revenue, the bank claims.
The strategic partnership with Thought Machine will also see the bank develop a single digital core banking front-end system for the international market, in line with the new domestic digital bank offering.
Thought Machine has been on something of a roll recently. In the past month alone, it has signed deals with three banks across the world.
In January, Danish neobank Lunar selected Thought Machine’s new core banking solution Vault to modernise its existing core systems as well as introduce new services and customer offerings.
Also in January, Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia selected Thought Machine’s Vault solution as it prepares to launch a new digital bank later this year.
Earlier this month, Thought Machine signed its second community bank in the US – Mascoma Bank.
