Engineering Ingegneria Informatica

Engineering Group. “Continuous Modernization”: the new mantra of banking

Pierangelo Mortara, Executive Director BU Financial Services at Engineering Group, tells the Engineering strategy to support banks and insurances toward digital transformation

Half a billion of revenue from the finance business unit. These are numbers of Engineering, that on last September concluded the acquisition of the Be|Shaping The Future Group, of which Pierangelo Mortara is CEO of the company controlled by DigiTech Solutions.

“Platformization”: the ultimate step toward the cloud

Under his leadership are 1,500 people, committed to supporting banks and insurance companies in digital transformation. "Digitization in the finance sector is leading to a profound transformation, improving accessibility, efficiency and security of Bank and Insurance services," Mortara says. Underlying this transformation process, we find a more comprehensive and structured Cloud Journey, a theme present in all the agendas of CEOs and CIOs of Banks and Insurance, which is proving to be a driving force for the financial sector. Banks and insurance companies are approaching these projects with the goal of aiming for greater flexibility, security, efficiency and competitiveness by offering their customers more innovative and personalized services. At the same time, cloud adoption in the financial sector brings new challenges regarding data security, regulatory compliance and risk management.

Data Governance and Regulation: the role of technology for Regulatory & Compliance systems

Another crucial issue for the banking business is data governance, which is that set of processes, policies, regulations and procedures that aim to ensure that data are managed appropriately, securely, consistently and in compliance with regulations. Regulatory Reporting systems, "of which we are the Market Leader in Italy with our GRACE platform," Mortara points out, "find their place in this area". The constant and continuous growth of Regulatory pressure translates for the Banking System into increased reporting that is required with increasing complexity and frequency by the various authorities (Bank of Italy, European Central Bank, European Banking Authority, Basel Committee, Interbank Deposit Protection Fund, etc.) and in the more stringent requirements of Fast Closing. GRACE enables complete Data Governance over the managed information assets in terms of: Data Quality, Data Lineage, and Data Knowledge. The defined technology evolution path will enable our customers to better target the benefits from the Cloud."

Leadership in the digital world

Engineering Group is one of the leaders in Italy in the digital transformation process, with the ambition to become its main player in the coming years.

"One of the goals is to bring these areas of our excellence to the finance market to become the partner of choice in the digital world for banks and insurance companies. In addition to the Cloud and Analytics offerings mentioned earlier, our leadership areas refer to our partnerships with leading global companies such as SAP, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Microsoft, Oracle, Google and AWS. Another area of excellence that we will bring into Finance is Cybersecurity," Mortara concludes, "where we already have some active services mainly with some insurance companies.

Insurance, the technology to modernize legacy systems

Engineering is also presenting news for the insurance and bankinsurance world. BE, in fact, brings as its dowry a Vita product, already used by several entities and capable, to date, of handling 30 percent of Vita premium collection in Italy. Users include Poste Vita, Crédit Agricole, UniCredit-CNP, Fideuram Vita, and Intesa Vita. "During the first half of the year we signed, again in the life sector, a contract with Medvida Partners and a leading Italian bank," Mortara continued. A digital platform (non-life and life) is also scheduled to be launched for the insurance world by the end of the year, which will enable new insurance sales channels for companies, banks, and the sales network of agents and brokers and will complement the current partnership with Yolo."

The strategic partnership with illimity

In June 2023, Engineering Group and illimity Bank signed a strategic partnership to develop and deploy NOVA, the Cloud platform developed by the two companies to support the Bank's business and growth. NOVA is a banking application framework that facilitates the development of digital solutions that are scalable, integrable and open to external partners. At the heart of NOVA is a "Middle Platform" - NOVA Foundation - that separates the typically legacy core systems from the digital touchpoints, providing data, services, intelligent (AI) engines, and micro-functionality to build applications for both customers and internal bank users. NOVA also offers specific application solutions for digital banking, both for SMEs and individuals, and an impaired credit management platform that optimizes the digital user experience integrated with human support. NOVA has a cloud-native architecture, equipped with a double layer of gateway APIs, microservices, and datalake to ensure optimal scalability and portability. Security, resilience and manageability of the platform are verified by Bank of Italy. NOVA's differentiating value lies in its open architecture and ability to accelerate the deployment of new intelligent applications that are easily integrated with third parties, rapidly deployable, and minimize impacts on legacy systems.