At Fabi yesterday's and today's bankers and bankers discuss the digital future

It was indeed another era, almost like a black and white photo, when Corrado Passera led Intesa Sanpaolo and Alessandro Profumo led UniCredit. Digital and artificial intelligence were still to come, the branches were many, many thousands more, and they were the centre of business and customer relations. The bank of yesterday and today will be discussed from today until 5 March at the 130th National Council of the first bankers' union, the Fabi Autonomous. The secretary general, Lando Maria Sileoni, has called together at the East End Studios in Milan 1,800 trade union leaders and many old and new protagonists of credit, for an event entitled 'Next generation bank. How we were, how we are, how we will be'. "At our Board," says Sileoni, "the objective is to anticipate events and manage them starting from the assumption that banks are already changing their organisational models and have already passed the first phase of digital processing. An issue that is at the heart of the negotiations at Abi on the digital control room. The meetings scheduled for today, 6 and 16 March, are to make progress 'in order to identify new figures and frameworks for the digital bank, within a national framework shared with the unions, but in fact the groups have already started and the steering committee is chasing a situation that has already begun. Our national council serves to regain ground on these issues, also by hearing from managers who have made banking history: we will have with us Corrado Passera and Alessandro Profumo and two experts on pre-reform and post-reform popular banks, such as Fabrizio Viola and Piero Luigi Montani. But also Cristiano Carrus of Mediocredito and academics, from Riccardo Zecchina to Donato Masciandaro to Claudio Emanuele Felice and Alberto Brambilla. The aim is to be able to pass on to all our union leaders a forward-looking vision of the sector, where the union's objective is to maintain employment levels, but also to promote the growth of people'.

Speakers on the first day will include the president of Abi, Antonio Patuelli, and the vice president of Federcasse, Matteo Spanò. Space will also be given to the theme of expiring contracts and work organisation. This will be discussed with a historic manager and president of Abi's Casl, Francesco Micheli, and the current one, Ilaria Maria Dalla Riva (UniCredit), together with the heads of personnel of the main institutions. Among those present will be Roberto Cascella of Intesa Sanpaolo, Fiorella Ferri of Mps, Roberto Speziotto of Banco Bpm, Andrea Merenda of Bper, Geraldine Conti of Bnl Bnp Paribas and Matteo Bianchi of Credit agricole Italia.