Buddy R-Evolution is born, what it is and what changes – WWN

Unicredit accelerates digital and announces the evolution of Buddybank, the digital bank opened in 2018 with 410 thousand customers. New name, new features and ambition to be a digital branch, remote and complementary, not an alternative, to the physical branches which will be operational from the first quarter of 2024, announces CEO Andrea Orcel. We have 1950 branches, I like to think it will be the 1951st. Buddy R-Evolution, as it will be called, will be led by Barbara Tamburini, head of products development & marketing communication at Unicredit Italia, and will add four new services in addition to the conciergerie available 24 hours a day, but above all the transition to it will be a choice of the customer, who will only have to update the mobile app while maintaining his credentials, underlines Remo Taricani, deputy head of Italy at UniCredit. First of all, the entire range of Unicredit products will be extended to the new digital bank: accounts, cards, financing, investments and insurance will be available to customers.

Secondly, we will add to the concierge service remote consultancy provided by managers on financing and investments with extended hours, from Monday to Friday plus Saturday morning, explains Taricani. There will also be the possibility of making an appointment with one of the 750 Unicredit financial agents for a personalized consultation, at home or in another place, such as the real estate one – fourth novelty – for those who want to change or renovate their home or have clarifications on the energy efficiency. Budy R-Evolution will not be a segregated bank, but a model for customers who wish to access a bank, notes Arianna Areni, head of client strategies at Unicredit Italia. It allows us to cover the territory where we are not physically present and allows those who want to become Unicredit customers to become one: a response to the desertification of branches, we invest on Italian territory.

100 people work at the concierge service in Milan: a team that answers various customer questions, imagine entering a physical branch with a welcome point, here is our concierge – says Tamburini -. In Buddy, artificial intelligence is not an end in itself, but enables automated routes. Buddybank has grown in recent years by 80-90 thousand customers a year, mainly new customers, reaching over 400 thousand. We expect this step to grow further in the coming years with the launch of the new Buddy R-Evolution, comments Taricani. We are giving customers the possibility to choose between digital and non-digital services, a further step forward in offering a perfect integration of our services, adds Orcel indicating that the complementarity of Buddy could also be extended to the German and Austrian markets in the future . “Digital development follows exactly the same lines as the development of the group in general,” he said, “we think we can develop what we need internally, so we focus on that, and in the next three years we will accelerate digitalization. it is clear that if we find accelerators, fintechs or platforms that allow us to accelerate what we are doing and that are attractive to us, we will not hesitate to look at them. Our investments in digital – 2.8 billion and 2,100 hires -, Orcel points out, are confirmed