Intesa Sanpaolo invests in banktech unicorn Thought Machine

Intesa Sanpaolo has invested £40 million in Thought Machine, the next-generation cloud-based banktech company, a strategic investment that will help the Group face the fintech challenge head on.

Intesa Sanpaolo has also chosen Thought Machine as its technology partner to create Isybank, the Group‘s new digital banking platform that is one of the key elements of its recently presented 2022-2025 Business Plan.

Isybank aims to initially serve – with a wide range of digital banking services – the 4 million Intesa Sanpaolo retail customers in Italy who do not use the branch network. Investments of €650 million are planned for the development and growth of Isybank over the plan period.

Intesa Sanpaolo also expressed its intention to extend Thought Machine's core banking platform into the wider Group IT infrastructure. Intesa Sanpaolo is replacing its mainframe-based core technology with cloud infrastructure, investing €5 billion in the Bank's digital transformation, a move that will include hiring and reskilling 4,000 people.