Engineering's vision of the future of Finance is detailed in the new White Paper named “Digital Finance”, which offers a cross-section of the sector from our Market Observatory on Central Bank Digital Currency.

In 2020, transactions generated by digital payments reached a worldwide value of over 5 trillion dollars. Of this figure, 2,500 billion was generated in China, just over 1,000 billion in the United States, and around 920 billion in Europe, which recorded the highest growth (+16%) compared to 2020. Transactions linked to Robo-Advisors are also growing to significant values, with transactions reaching 987.5 billion in 2020 and an expected growth of almost 23% by 2025. Also in 2020, Alternative Lending reached 290 billion dollars; by 2025 it could be close to 500 billion.*

The Finance World is changing and Engineering describes this transformation through two new publications: the White Paper "Digital Finance", which collects and reports on analysed data, trends and technology scenarios in the sector, and the Instant Paper "Central Bank Digital Currency", which inaugurates the new editorial series entitled Our Market Observatory, created together with Nexen, an Engineering Group company that provides consulting services for the banking and insurance world.

"The value of the future is creativity, and it is the banks that will be the driving force behind this new path, by strengthening advisory services and facilitating credit and most likely financing this revolution," explains Giuseppina Volpi, General Manager of Digital Finance at Engineering. "Covid and smart working have changed the rules of the game by offering the possibility of working anywhere and possibility to move away from large cities, setting in motion the micro-enterprise and creating a great opportunity for banks to reignite the economy - which must relaunch from the social sphere and from young generations".

Experts from the Engineering Group explain how the bank mergers of recent years, progressive digitalisation (accelerated by Covid), and the need to network with different supply chains are completely changing the face of banks, which will shift from being brokers of products to become brokers of values for the future. Financial players must therefore become enablers of new ecosystems, accelerating the creativity of companies and helping them to capitalise on the power of the new black gold: data and the ability to extract knowledge from it.

Ample space is given to exploring how enabling technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and RPA can help banks to create a highly personalised relationship with their clients, to the point of anticipating their needs and expectations.
Engineering follows and supports this path of Digital Transformation, helping financial institutions to place Clients - who are increasingly being seen as individuals and recognized as having unique needs - at the centre of their strategies. This process takes financial institutions from Banking Platforms to Open Service Platforms, with the ability to be the actors if not the directors of new ecosystems, being entities capable of enabling new interconnections with the players around them.

The Instant Paper "Central Bank Digital Currency" completes and deepens Engineering's vision of the Finance world. Written by Nexen, the document inaugurates the new editorial series Our Market Observatory, which, over the coming months, will explore topics such as Embedded Finance, Fintegration, and Bank as a Service.
Nexen's experts explain which strategies the European Central Bank is deploying to make digital currency an alternative to traditional money, ensuring that it is just as inclusive and safe. They also explain how the Central Bank Digital Currency could form a bridge between the possibilities of the digital and analogue worlds, acting as a tool that can reduce the attractiveness of virtual tools issued by private entities, which have a higher risk profile.

The White Paper "Digital Finance" is part of an editorial series where Engineering reports on the most important market-related and technological trends in Digital Transformation journey.

To download the White Paper “Digital Finance”: https://www.eng.it/en/white-papers/Digital-Finance 
To download the instant paper on the Central Bank Digital Currency Observatory https://www.eng.it/en/white-papers/Central-Bank-Digital-Currency 

*Source: Statista Digital Market Outlook 2021