Global Banking & Finance Awards® 2019 Winner –  INVEST BANCA– Exclusive Interview

Stefano Sardelli, General Manager of Invest Banca talks to Global Banking & Finance Review about the current state of the securities market, their commitment to innovation and  the year ahead.

Can you tell us about Invest Banca S.p.A. and the competitive advantage you offer?

Invest Banca is a private bank with a ownership structure made by a various institutional subjects (mainly territorial banks, located in Northern and Central Italy), companies specialized in information technology (outsourcing’s software for banks) and some private investors.

Invest Banca is characterized by the wide range of financial services, offered both to retail and institutional clients, standed for by high quality standards, a strong vocation for innovation and to the use of the most advanced technologies.

Organized according to a functional business model, on the one hand it performs typical activities of the brokerage bank and private banking, on the other it offers specific and customized services on behalf of financial intermediaries.

Whether it would be business or retail customers, Invest Banca has always been felt on the Markets as a byword for professionalism, innovation and flexibility in the supply of financial products and services.

High levels of efficiency and suppleness, matched with the most advanced technological solutions, realize Invest Banca the right interlocutor for those who are looking for quality solutions, successful and forecast.

Let’s talk for a minute about the current state of the securities market. What are the challenges and opportunities you see taking place right now?

To rival in increasingly unstable and evolved financial markets, are required advanced expertise skill, and an higher professionalism. This is our value.

The financial markets context has become more subtle and complicated in the last few year, both due to the extensive additional regulation introduced by Mifid 2 Rules, and to the innovative technological developments underway.

We need of advanced and efficient intermediaries, not necessarily too much large, but able to perform bester their role, with professionalism and innovation.

The Fintech looks with more attention to financial markets, with the aim of evolving or even to revolution the trading / settlement / post-trade systems that are digitized or Blockchain-based.

In this background Invest Banca is surely one of the main players, not by chance that the General Manager – Stefano Sardelli – is the manager of the Fintech Commission behalf of the “Italian Association of Financial Markets Operators (ASSIOMFOREX)”, and in 2016’s year he received by the the President of the Republic the National Award for Innovation.

How does Invest Banca support institutional clients?

You can choose to follow marked paths, or accept change and indeed, put it into a system.

Invest Banca has chosen this second way, making innovation in products and processes a driving force for growth, own and of its customers.

Invest Banca offers access/upload to its financial technology (and infrastructure) to financial intermediaries and institutional customers who want to expand their business, by enlarge the offer of products and services.

Especially, they can use our solutions to:

• open new distribution channels for its products or financial instruments;
• offer own specialized services, chosen among those proposed by Invest Banca;
• enrich its product offer, without having to invest in structure or human resource.

Through the outsourcing of banking processes it is possible to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the entire business. So, without losing its own independence, the institutional client can take advantage of high quality services, and to benefit of substantial large scale economies:

• Increase in revenues
• Cut of fixed costs
• Compliance with new Rules
• Complete customer satisfaction

Can you tell us about some of the innovative products and solutions you offer to help individuals achieve their investment objectives?

As part of online trading for professionals, Invest Banca has designed IB Prisma, a highly evolved digital platform that presents itself with the appeal of a tool that can adapts to the different needs of traders, providing complete and successful solutions.

IB Prisma (cited above) has made stability – even in the fast market times – one of its greatest strengths, thanks due to the use of the C ++ program language which, in the phase of market volatility, is more reliable than others generally used.

Invest Banca has offered in Italy, already since 2015, the first digital asset management signing online, which allows access to automated portfolio consulting solutions (roboadvisor and roboinvestor).

The advanced technology adopted by Invest Banca makes it possible to offer personalized asset management for private customers that needs of it, and an active role for the client in the choice of asset allocation of the portfolios, thanks due to the “market box” tool.

These solutions are proving to be more effective and update, especially in times of greater volatility of the markets, with automation and technological devices pushed that are decreeing its success.

Looking at the year ahead, which sectors do you feel will outperform over the next year?

It’s no easy in the current context to make such far-off forecasts.

There are many economic, financial and geopolitical variables. The slowdown in growth is now evident also in the macroeconomic data, especially for developed economies, and the markets wait for strong monetary actions.

The effect of these actions will take time to be realized. It is no coincidence that the race of investors towards higher-rated bonds is continuing with very strong pace: a sign that big investors not believe in a prompt macro recovery.

For bonds it will be important to reduce the credit risk for Government securities and at variable rates; for equities it will be need to look value in the Value and High Dividend securities.

Finally, it will be interesting to consider alternative investments (from cash to gold to “Market-Neutral” and / or “Hedging-Volatility” management styles) to have more de-correlation.

What are your future plans for development and growth?

The financial markets, both national and international, are increasingly evolved and competitive.

In order to guarantee the greatest entirety of the services offered and the best level of performance, Invest Banca has promoted the creation of a companies group specialized in the banking services.

The Banking Group is today composed by the same Invest Bank as a group leader and by other companies with strong expertise in the area of ​​capital markets.

Invest Banca is fully aware of the pervasive transformation underway in the banking and financial world. Complexity, speed and testability of operations and transactions are today decisive parameters for the future of banking companies, which require increasingly advanced and flexible technologies.

With our partner and controlling shareholder CABEL Holding we’re sharing the decision to radically innovate the offer of banking outsourcing by establishing a partnership with Oracle for the development of a digital native core banking platform that we are using at full capacity since the beginning of 2019.

We’re sure that Oracle’s software expertise, matched with Cabel’s experience, will enable us to make a more important qualitative improvement, in line with the rapid changes imposed by the Rules evolution of banking activity and the inevitable digitization of sector. The important commitment will involve all the resources of Invest Bank at various levels, resources of high quality and competence, which on many proof have already shown a professional focus on innovation