Financial institutions
In recent years, financial institutions have been operating in an extremely challenging environment, characterized by greater degrees of interconnectedness, heterogeneous regulatory rules, the rapid dissemination of financial information and extremely mobile international capital. The combination of all these factors creates appealing business opportunities, but can often generate considerable risks.

Thanks to a consolidated experience gained with international organizations, financial institutions and insurance companies operating in Europe, Northern Africa, the Middle East and the emerging countries in Asia and Latin America, Value Partners is a global and flexible partner, ready to assist its clients in achieving their growth and transformational goals. Innovation and sustainability are the values on which we create tailored solutions in retail banking, corporate banking and payment services.

RETAIL BANKING
Evolving regulations, digital innovation and rapidly changing customer behaviours are the main drivers of the ongoing transformation in retail banking. We assist our clients in several areas, such as the achievement of new goals through a suitable strategic plan, the review of the governance system, the definition of new service models and the design of innovative distribution methods. In particular, in developed countries Value Partners helps financial institutions in enhancing the value of their customer base, by identifying innovative solutions to optimise the branch network, to integrate customer information in an omni-channel logic and to improve customer experience, thereby increasing business opportunities. In emerging markets, our focus is to support our clients in bringing financial inclusion to the underserved population, by introducing innovative products and services, as well as defining and implementing sustainable expansion plans.

CORPORATE BANKING
The corporate banking industry is experiencing a transition phase after the financial markets crisis that exploded at the end of the 2000s and the consequent regulatory response, which led to complex de-leveraging activities, risk containment and company restructurings. Our expertise in serving large corporations enables us to assess strategic options allowing capital optimisation and customer service improvement, developing action plans client by client or redefining the strategic positioning of specific products, such as, for instance, leasing and factoring, or in particular industries or geographical areas.

PAYMENT SERVICES
The evolution of electronic payment services is an area in which the combination of innovation, experience and concreteness represents the key success factor. We assist institutional clients, banks, payment institutions and technological companies in defining and implementing their transformational path in the new economic scenario that emerged with the creation of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) and the adoption of the Payment Services Directive (PSD). We work with our clients in the assessment of strategic options in the sectors of payment cards, credit and debit, and of electronic payments, mobile and instant, with the aim of strengthening their profitability and improving customer experience.

Strategy and competitive positioning

Value Partners supports financial institutions in defining and implementing winning strategies, by combining the achievement of short-term goals with long-term growth and sustainability. In particular, we develop strategies for the re-composition of portfolio of activities, the opening of new markets, the repositioning of business lines and growth through mergers and acquisitions (M&A), with a specific focus on capital generation and risk-weighted assets (RWA) optimisation.

Marketing

Financial institutions increasingly need to balance distribution and marketing costs with their ability to retain customers, create a better customer experience and stimulate revenues growth. We work with our clients to optimise territorial structures, innovate customer service models, design offering evolution and define the optimal product mix. These activities go along with proposals of innovative pricing models, also with a risk-based perspective. In addition, we assist our clients in improving their sales force productivity, by analysing the main barriers to sales activities, strengthening and widening educational programmes and aligning performance metrics and incentive systems.

Operations and efficiency improvement

Financial institutions are placing a greater emphasis on efficiency improvement and on the innovation of their value proposition to customers, as a result of the rapid technological changes within an economic scenario characterized by a prolonged period of low interest rates and increasingly tighter capital requirements. Value Partners supports its clients in reviewing their internal organisational models, in sizing central and network structures, in optimising operational models (i.e., business functions, IT, back-office and real estate) and in process reengineering.

Risk management and compliance

The risks of sharp capital dislocation, high volatility, widespread financial contagion, large defaults and, ultimately, serious losses appear to be greater than at any time in our history, and so must be at the center of every CEO’s thoughts and actions. The effective development of a consistent risk culture throughout financial institutions becomes the main enabling tool in risk management, which needs to cover all area of activities, with accountability for risk management being a priority for the whole institution.
Value Partners supports its clients in defining risk management frameworks, with the aim of directing them toward sustainable growth and, at the same time, ensure full independent oversight, compliance with regulations and adequate insight to directors, top management, auditors, regulators and investors. We work to: define risk appetite frameworks and credit strategies, reinforcing their link to corporate strategy, budgets and compensation mechanisms; optimise risk-weighted assets (RWA) and adopt advanced methods for computing capital requirements; simplify, automate and accelerate credit processes; define sales and credit solutions for risk identification and mitigation in portfolios of both performing exposures at greatest risk and non-performing exposures.

Banking the unbanked

Value Partners supports financial institutions in emerging markets to improve their profitability by designing and implementing service models focused on bringing financial inclusion to the underserved population. In particular, in Asian developing countries we assist local banks in designing and implementing community-based lending models for the million micro-enterprises constituting the trading backbone of these countries. Furthermore, we work to define expansion strategies, launch innovative products and services, and evolve the organizational model towards a greater customer-centricity. Our value proposition combines strategy definition with management support and on-field, operational activities.

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