“ATM leading the way for fintech The Stock Exchange? No road is excluded.”

“Widespread distribution has already made us a tool for financial inclusion” “More expensive commissions? Everything has to be demonstrated: it is up to the Antitrust to evaluate”

“Between the cash of the past and cryptocurrencies, which probably represent the future, there is a world. Largely unexplored and only partially valued. This is where BANCOMAT S.p.A. intends to become more and more an instrument of support and financial inclusion.”

Franco Dalla Sega, president of the leading company in Italy in debit card payments thanks to 2.5 billion transactions a year, around a brand so familiar to the point that it is equivalent to the instrument for many, sees a real “cultural challenge”, explains in this interview with Il Sole 24 Ore. But it also sees “the Italian gateway to fintech: in addition to offering cutting-edge solutions, we are owned by 125 banks and therefore entirely Italian.”

Professor Dalla Sega, in the banking sector, innovation travels at an incredible speed. Is ATM the past or the future?

One and the other. With our almost 40 years of history behind us, we are no longer young, it's true. But we still have a long history ahead of us, because our ownership structure makes us one of the few places where shared fintech strategies are built.

I insist: aren't credit or debit cards out of date?

This is partly true, but I would like to remind you that BANCOMAT S.p.A. does not belong to the cards, owned by each individual bank or operator that issues it, but to the circuit that connects them. Our society is responsible for infrastructure, both material and immaterial, with all its infinite possibilities for development.

You are almost a hostage to your brand.

In some ways this is true, but the word 'ATM' is so familiar even in the sections of the population less prone to change that it makes us a great tool for financial inclusion.

What does it mean?

Compared to many other fintech players, we can start from a well-known, secure and widespread infrastructure, of which we fully own.

For a couple of years now we have gradually started to make known the potential that goes far beyond withdrawals and payments, with encouraging feedback. It is a first sign to say that we can change.

Any examples?

Two years ago, we launched the BANCOMAT Pay circuit for digital payments, which in the coming months will allow access to e-commerce services even to all those who do not have a credit card. Then we have partnerships with the main tech giants, such as Samsung, Huawei and others will come, and we allow our customers to transfer money simply through mobile phones. It is with all this that the culture of fintech can also spread in Italy, which is decisive given the high average age often concentrated in small municipalities now left without bank branches.

But in the meantime, as noted by Il Sole 24 Ore and Plus24, you have informed the Antitrust of your intention to raise commissions on withdrawals and other transactions on ATMs, automated teller machines.

Meanwhile, I would like to stress that it is a proposal, born from the confrontation between different sensitivities and now being examined by an authority that will have to express itself on the matter. This does not mean that it will cost more to withdraw.

It has to be demonstrated that in the end there will be a tightening of conditions: everything depends on the choices that individual banks will make. We thought it was time to modify a somewhat outdated pricing system, according to an industrial logic and certainly not to pull the neck at our customers.

What future do you see for automated teller machines?

They are an important stage in the innovation process of the banking industry, we will try to provide them with all the services that institutions ask us for.

But I can see the future beyond that: it is no coincidence that we are preparing to allow the withdrawal of cash, and in the future also other transactions, at commercial establishments.

Earlier we mentioned your shared ownership: but can you really keep so many banks together that in order to survive they will have to compete more and more, first of all in the technological field?

It is our hope. I cannot hide the fact that within us the confrontation is real, sometimes heated, but so far we have always found a shared falling point and all our members have recognized our role as diffusers of innovation and stabilizers of infrastructure, on which then every bank offers what it wants at the price it believes. I remind you that the last capital increase was subscribed to by practically everyone.

One of your supply chain neighbors, Nexi, has been listed and is at the center of a very ambitious aggregation process. And you?

BANCOMAT has a difficult value to represent with ordinary methods: our net worth is 28 million, but we are sure that the brand alone is worth another order of magnitude.

So is the Stock Exchange in your plans?

We were a consortium, four years ago we became a S.p.A. and as such there can be many roads.

Now we are focused on consolidating our position in the payments market, but I cannot rule out any path that is not part of business logic, including a possible IPO.

Professor, what do you think of State Cashback?

I see it as a means to achieve the goals we have discussed, namely financial inclusion and, ultimately, the limit to the use of cash, which represents an objective of the newly established Government.

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