Powens Expands Its European Footprint to Fuel Italy’s Open Finance Revolution

Powens’ cutting-edge Open Finance platform will help Italy’s financial sector embrace digital transformation and unlock next-gen customer experiences.

Consumers expect almost everything to be done digitally these days. Whether it’s to open a bank account or request a line of credit, they want to be able to go from “point A to point B” in the fewest clicks possible—typically, via a mobile device. Unfortunately, many financial institutions still don’t offer their customers the kind of digital experiences they’ve grown to expect. Fortunately, this is about to change in Italy.

Today, Powens, Europe’s Open Finance leader, is bringing its Open Finance expertise as well as its full suite of industry-leading Open Finance solutions to Italy, empowering banks and financial institutions to harness the potential of Open Finance to create customer experiences that boost engagement, increase conversion, and drive customer loyalty.

 

Italy is ready to harness the power of Open Finance

Over the past few years, Italy’s financial landscape has experienced a renaissance all of its own, driven by a combination of timely regulatory changes, a strong and rapidly growing fintech ecosystem, and increased consumer demand for innovative, streamlined, and effective digital banking services. Coupled with the country’s large, digitally-savvy population, it becomes the perfect backdrop for Open Finance to make its mark.

The growth potential for Open Finance in Italy was further reinforced in the recently released The Global Open Finance Report. In the report, CBI and PwC found that the overall number of unique users for Open Finance-fueled Account Information Services (AIS) has grown by 64% since June 2021 and by a whopping 564% since June 2020. Taking that one step further, account aggregation services were most often used by consumers with only one additional account; however, since June 2021, the greatest growth potential (+28%) stems from consumers looking to aggregate more than three additional accounts—thereby signifying a desire among Italian consumers to simplify and streamline their financial lives.

These numbers prove one thing: the time is now for banks and financial institutions in Italy to take full advantage of the Open Finance revolution that has seen meaningful digital transformation take hold in many of Europe’s leading financial markets. By establishing a solid presence in Italy, Powens has a unique opportunity to lean into Italy’s already robust digital infrastructure and build partnerships with the country’s leading financial institutions, helping them not only deploy next-gen customer experiences but also close the Open Finance gap that currently exists between Italy and its European counterparts.

The expansion of Powens’ European footprint into Italy is a proactive step in both helping the country’s financial services sector meet the ever-evolving needs of Italian consumers and reinforcing its longstanding commitment to unlocking the potential and promise of Open Finance technologies to all corners of Europe and beyond. Work is already underway with a handful of local customers who are ready to be Italy’s Open Finance pioneers. Case studies showcasing their success will be shared in the coming weeks.

 

Powens: Europe’s definitive Open Finance leader

While Open Finance may seem like a relatively new concept for some within the financial services industry, for decades Powens has led the Open Finance movement in Europe.

Powens’ deep technical and regulatory expertise has led to the creation of fully-compliant, next-gen Open Finance solutions—that streamline, automate, and improve processes like customer onboarding, identity verification, real-time credit scoring, and instant payments—while also significantly reducing (user) error and minimizing the risk of fraud.

“In just a little over 10 years, we’ve not only established Powens as Europe’s definitive Open Finance leader, but we’ve also created a robust dialogue around the power of Open Finance to fuel much-needed digital transformation across the financial services industry,” says Bertrand Jeannet, Powens CEO. “Our goal is to continue growing our presence so that we can give financial institutions in every country across Europe—and well beyond—an easy and effective way to take advantage of everything that Open Finance has to offer.”

But creating cutting-edge Open Finance solutions is only part of the equation. Powens’ has earned its leadership position across Europe by being a trusted voice for its customers in front of European regulatory bodies. As a best practice, the Powens team actively solicits customer feedback to not only inform and influence regulatory decisions but also anticipate rapidly changing market (and consumer) dynamics to fuel its innovation pipeline.

For these reasons, Powens is well-positioned to help financial institutions across Italy get ahead of the Open Finance curve. “Growing adoption of Open Finance technology has brought digital transformation to Italy’s financial landscape, sparking rapid innovation, increasing competition, and even motivating banks and fintechs to collaborate to develop personalized financial services, streamlined payments, enhanced safety measures, and well beyond,” explains Daniele Zini, Business Development Director at Powens. “But there’s still a lot of room for growth—and Powens is ready to lead Italy into the Open Finance future.”

 

Europe’s financial and tech leaders trust Powens

Powens’ client roster boasts over 260 banks and financial institutions across Europe, in addition to disruptive tech companies and industry-leading software vendors.

Although each customer taps into a tailor-made combination of Powens’ Open Finance solutions differently to address a variety of end-user needs, there’s nonetheless a common thread among them all: Powens has enabled them to embrace digital transformation to create automated, efficient, and frictionless customer journeys that fuel business growth.

From aggregating multiple financial data sources to verifying customer identity to streamlining payments, Powens’ end-to-end Open Finance platform can help banks and financial institutions in Italy compete at the global level in terms of customer experience.

 

Ready to learn how easy it is to bring your business into the Open Finance future?

Schedule a demo to learn more about Powens’ cutting-edge Open Finance platform.

 

 

About Powens

Powens was founded in 2012 in Paris, France, as one of the few Open Finance pioneers for B2B customers in Europe. Today, the cutting-edge Open Finance Platform empowers over 260 leading financial services companies to automate processes, improve risk management, shorten time to decisions, and enrich customer insight.

Powens’ powerful end-to-end Open Finance platform not only makes it possible to access the most accurate financial data from multiple sources—checking and savings accounts, loans, investments, and assets—in a fully-compliant way, but it also provides solutions to streamline customer onboarding, enable credit decision-making, and automate invoicing and payments.

The company was originally founded as Budget Insight and rebranded to “Powens” in 2022 to pave the way for its ambitious international growth strategy. The company is a licensed Account Information and Payment Initiation Services provider with a passport to operate throughout the EU.