Italy-UK Partnership

PARTNERSHIP | Fall 2020 08 Interview with Paolo Sironi, IBM Institute for Business Value A discussion about FinTech and its future following the pandemic and Brexit S ince early this year the world has been facing an unprecedented challenge that is still having a strong impact on the world economy, even on rising sectors such as Fintech one. We discussed the matter with Paolo Sironi, Banking and Finance Global Research Leader, IBM Institute for Business Value. ICC: How is the global pandemic going to impact the FinTech sector? PS: The slowdown in investors’ funding will affect start-ups’ capability to run operations and scale up innovative ideas to transform financial services and client relationships. The post-pandemic banking system needs - more than ever - to embrace FinTech innovation to address new customer needs and the acceleration of digital habits. Banks are invited to lead “through the dark” by transforming their business models on digital and strengthening operations through secured cloud access, advanced automation, and the simplification of processes and products. ICC: How has IBM been coping with Covid-19 crisis? PS: IBM has been taking care of employees to protect their health and safety, allowing them to take care of clients around the world without reducing professional commitments and reliability of operations. But IBM did more, marshalling internal resources and bringing together the right communities of experts to work together, and to manage through the COVID-19 outbreak with what we do best: applying data, knowledge,