Banking Innovation of the Month: Switcho by Intesa Sanpaolo

Qorus-Accenture’s Banking Innovation of the Month award for May goes to Switcho, a free in-app service enabling customers to compare, change and optimize utility bills with ease through a 100% digital journey.

Soaring gas and electricity bills have become a major pain point for the average household’s budget management. More and more consumers are looking for cost-cutting solutions, but researching different utility providers and then going through the process of switching can be time-consuming and confusing.

Enter Switcho, Intesa Sanpaolo’s latest innovation: a digital platform that compares the majority gas and electricity offers in the market, and manages the entire process of switching providers for the customer. 

Integrated into Intesa Sanpaolo’s banking app, the service is 100% digital and free, available to any of the Italian bank’s customers. The user uploads their current annual utility plan, Switcho suggests cheaper rates from a wide range of providers, and shows the estimated annual savings. Once the customer chooses the electricity/gas solution that better fits their needs, Switcho manages the entire bureaucratic process of the ‘switch’ and notifies the customer when it’s completed.

Moreover – unlike classic rate comparison platforms – after making the switch, users can get an estimate of their annual expenditure and therefore know how much they can expect to save each year.

Switcho is the first non-financial service to be integrated directly into Intesa Sanpaolo’s bank app. The project is part of the bank’s broader open banking strategy, which aims to create an ecosystem that makes a wide range of financial and non-financial services available to customers through the app. Moving forward, Intesa Sanpaolo plans to enter other partnerships to enable the integration of new value-added services, capitalizing on synergies and creating new touchpoints, while strengthening its relationship with customers by continuously responding to their needs.

It's early days yet for Switcho, but the results so far look promising: in only one month since the service’s launch, and without any communication campaign by the bank, already 13,000 new users have registered and more than 6,000 of them have uploaded their current utility bills. From these, approximately 2,800 cheaper proposals were identified by Switcho and more than 450 switches were completed, entirely managed by the platform. 

The Switcho service is very much in the spirit of the times, helping people in their fight against the decline in purchasing power, while making the customer journey ever smoother. We’re happy to name it Innovation of the Month, and look forward to seeing more such value-added services integrated into banking apps (Read the full case study).

Santander’s innovation will be automatically selected as a nominee for the Qorus-Accenture Banking Innovation Awards 2023. Submit your innovations on the Banking Innovation portal until 13th September. Participation is free of charge and open to all Qorus members.