06 Nov FLOOR TO OUR MERCHANTS: AGSM

Hello Ilenia, let’s start with a question linked to the current context. What impact did Covid19 have on a resilient sector such as that of utilities and in particular what consequences on AGSM Verona?

Covid-19 has favoured dematerialization processes and facilitated both organizational and individual digital evolution. We can therefore say that the lockdown further accellerated processes optimisation, something which was already ongoing at AGSM.

How have you grown over the years and what have been the main objectives you achieved?

The group has seen a stable growth over the years particularly within our sales company (we recently celebrated our 500,000 active customer – (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrtaqdiPb3g&feature=youtu .be). This is certainly due to our commitment  and focus on efficiency and balanced diversification: thanks to this strategy, we are now present in 6800 municipalities in Italy, with consequent raise in turnover and profits.

How important are innovation and digitalisation for you ? What are your main challenges and what are the opportunities?

The Company always keep his eyes open on the world’s technological and organizational innovation also enabled by digitalisation and is definitely motivated to seize its opportunities. We are aware that innovation runs fast and companies will only be able to ensure competitiveness and economic results if able to keep pace, adopting -from the wide range of available technologies-  the most useful and effective tools to support their own evolutionary process.

How important are digital payments at AGSM Verona?

Payments too, are part of the evolution process which affects customer segment activities as a whole. Smartphones are the new post office and bank counter: this is undoubtedly one of the most important channels to focus on.

AGSM bills can also be paid with MyBank. Who are its users and what are the advantages for them?

MyBank is used by some private and corporate customers. We see that each customer chooses the payment method based on its simplicity and user-friendliness, next to its costs, of course. These are the criteria for the competition among the different payment tools.

And why does MyBank fit your digital development strategy?

MyBank is perfectly in line with the optimization of payment matching processes: this means more rapid, cost-effective, optimised services. The challenge is therefore to work upstream, or to motivate customers to switch from “old style” payments channels to new, alternative ones such as MyBank.

What results have you achieved and how has MyBank contributed to the digitalisation and innovation of processes at AGSM Verona?

MyBank has not only offered a new option to users  in search of an alternative to credit card payment, but also enabled immediate certainty of payment a tour end: as a result, a greater part of our customers have switched to digital services.

MyBank allows immediate collection and optimises cash flow. Are you benefitting from these features, too? Is it something you actually use or promote?

As already mentioned, AGSM Verona is carrying out a process of technological and organizational optimisation. There are so many opportunities offered by technology and digitalisation and we are committed to maximize improvement based on  our business priorities.

By providing immediate confimation of the irrevocable transaction, MyBank payments allow 100% automatic reconciliation. How can this feature contribute to optimise collection processes at your end?

We are trying to switch to collection tools like MyBank as much as possible, due to all the benefits they provide in terms of efficiency and efficacy: of course, these  allow us to effectively streamline business processes and optimise available resources.

SCA (Strong Customer Authentication) is one of the great innovations of PSD2, however already a feature of MyBank payments since their launch on the market. What advantages have you seen so far with MyBank in terms of security of collected transactions?

This is an aspect for which, generally speaking, there is still quite some room for improvement. MyBank is certainly perceived as a secure and protected payment by its users among our customers – and at our end, too, we definitely can count on reliable and frictionless transactions.