The paper analyses the link between IT investments and the operational resilience of Italian banks. The paper studies banks' ability to direct customers towards using online credit transfers in order to continue supplying payment services during the Covid-19 pandemic. We use bank and province-level data on banks' IT investment, online credit transfers, potential demand for online payments and mobility restriction measures.
The banks that had invested more in IT before the pandemic experienced a greater increase in the share of credit transfers made online compared with the others, even under the same conditions in terms of demand for these services. IT investments can therefore cover banks against unanticipated events, confirming the importance of the initiatives taken in recent years by the authorities to raise awareness among intermediaries so that they invest in technology and digitalization.
