The CEO of Andbank and executive vice president of MyInvestor, Carlos Aso, assured this Wednesday that, as of today, traditional banking has not set itself the objective of acquiring new digital 'players' to strengthen its position in this segment.
"I am not aware of any interest from traditional banks in acquiring neobanks, but obviously many things can happen in a few years," Aso stated during his speech at the seminar organized this week by the Association of Economic Information Journalists (APIE) and the Menéndez Pelayo International University (UIMP) in Santander.
When analyzing the competitive disadvantages of traditional entities, the executive highlighted that "the high commissions" they charge in the investment field constitute "the big elephant in the room."
In this regard, he explained that when Artificial Intelligence (AI), and specifically "Claude," allows for almost immediate comparison of investment products from different financial entities, users will tend to opt for alternatives with lower costs, which "do not reside in traditional banking."
According to data handled by the digital bank, large banks market investment funds that generate around 5.55 billion euros annually in commissions. If they had to compete with neobanks through an AI-based information infrastructure that showed customers the options with the lowest commissions, Aso estimates that these revenues would fall to 1.5 billion euros, implying a loss of about 4 billion euros in income.
In the area of deposits, the neobank calculates that savers hold around 1.147 trillion euros in remunerated products. With an average rate of 0.5%, the entity estimates that traditional banks retain 20.073 billion euros in implicit commissions for not passing on the current reference rate of the European Central Bank (ECB) to the customer.
"If they matched the remuneration of a neobank (1.7%), they would only earn 5.735 billion after deducting the ECB's 2.25%, meaning they would have lost 14.338 billion euros," the executive remarked.
Even so, Aso admitted that conventional financial entities could also obtain "notable" benefit from the incorporation of AI, although this would be concentrated mainly on cost containment and not so much on an increase in revenue.
"They can do it with job cuts or through suppliers or through their own staff with branch closures as well, that's where cost savings come from," Aso stated, detailing the possible adjustment methods.
At the same time, he insisted that the implementation of this technology initially has an inflationary impact, as it raises costs, but over time it becomes "substitutive" and can "reduce them in the future."
MyInvestor Nears One Million Clients and Accelerates Growth
Furthermore, the CEO of Andbank announced that MyInvestor now has 930,000 clients and manages 12 billion euros in investments. Thus, the total business volume stands at 17 billion euros. "We have managed to attract the investor who will put their money to work," Aso highlighted.
In this context, the entity detailed that, on average, around 435 million euros per month are channeled into the firm's various investment vehicles. Regarding the origin of these funds, the CEO of Andbank emphasized that approximately 275 million euros come from the three largest banks by business volume in Spain.
Regarding the possibility of continued growth through acquisitions, the executive indicated that he "is attentive" to opportunities that may arise in the market, alluding to the sale process of Singular Bank, although he made it clear that they are not currently involved in that operation.
"We are always attentive to what is in the market, we are a bank that has carried out quite a few inorganic operations to grow. It is true that now, our appetite is smaller due to the growth rate we have: Andbank takes in about 3 billion per year and MyInvestor another 6 billion per year. When you grow organically by nearly 9 billion, the appetite is reduced, and although we look at everything, we are not in that operation," Aso concluded.