Account Aggregation: enhancing financial information for defining new bidding models using an Open Distribution approach.

PSD2 has enabled significant changes in the banking and payments industry with respect to roles and responsibilities, actors involved, and supporting technology solutions. The delimited scenario allows banks to explore future development models of the traditional banking paradigm.

Account Aggregation represents a strategic opportunity to set up a new and more effective customer relationship. However, a stand-alone aggregation service runs the risk of having no significant impact on the business, thus having to be used as the basis for creating a new offering model. This element is part of moving from a passive and compliance approach to innovation to a proactive and dynamic one. For this to be possible, there is a need to enhance the aggregate financial information that is obtained, so that one can dynamically understand what interest, at a specific point in its life cycle, the customer may manifest toward certain services, to satisfy what need.

Therefore, it is essential to have available constant monitoring of each customer's Customer Lifecycle in order to develop Customer Journeys as closely tailored to specific needs. For this, it is necessary to consider individually the various phases and the elements in each of them that most influence the behavior of the individual person.

In the current scenario of hyper-personalization of services, banks must learn from the best practices of players in other industries to transform the experience they offer. It is therefore required to offer proactive personalization, easier and more immediate interactions, andcontinuous innovation. Data Aggregation can enable the development of a unique representation of the customer across all touchpoints, online and offline, of the Customer Journey, as well as identify the most significant parameters of customer behaviors. This element allows for more parameterized offerings, using simpler but at the same time more targeted and effective communication strategies, especially through the use of Analytics.

Thus, if implemented correctly, through the definition of a clear strategy that includes, from the implementation phase, the subsequent development of value-added offerings, AIS is capable of bringing benefits to both customers and the bank. In fact, from the Instant Survey of CeTIF - "Account Aggregation Scenario" - shows that among institutions that have not yet developed the functionality, 75 percent plan to develop it. Among them, 40% by the end of 2020. The bank is able to improve operational and marketing processes as well as optimize credit models and processes. At the same time, cross and up selling activities can be carried out. Customers can benefit from a multitude of different services focused on improving their financial habits and understanding their future needs with a view to better planning their spending and savings. From the above Survey, it appears that the value-added services, implemented on the basis of AIS functionality, that are found to be of most interest are represented by 40 percent by offering mechanisms for investing small amounts to help achieve specific goals; for the other 40 percent by making available to the customer an instant and dynamic creditworthiness score; and for the remaining 20 percent by offering tools to help correct harmful financial behavior.

From a business development perspective, the bank can follow two main directions: offering value-added services, in order to realize some marginality, and advanced profiling of its customers, aimed at redirecting them to products and services related to the core business. The bank can thus implement new business models that enable it to take on new roles vis-à-vis its customers such as that of financial coach and partner, as well as driver of future trends, being able to anticipate their needs.

However, the customer needs to have a clear understanding of the real benefits he or she will be able to derive, so that he or she will have a greater incentive to grant consent for access to his or her data. The latter is part of the debate regarding the possibility of the acquisition, processing and transfer of customer data in the context of the provision of financial services. Given the less than perfect coincidence between PSD2 and the GDPR with reference precisely to the conditions of lawfulness and fairness of data processing, the consent of the data subject and the "purposes" of processing, it is necessary to dwell on the analysis of these aspects in order to have a greater shrewdness of the relevant aspects to be taken into account in the development of such projects.