The third Call for Proposals is dedicated to the following theme:
'Instant payments - and, more generally, digital payments - as enablers of innovation for banking, financial and insurance services and products, with particular regard to the need to ensure:
- the efficiency and speed of value transfers, including through the use of dedicated settlement infrastructures and the capabilities offered by open banking; in this regard, it notes the possibility of easy and immediate use of instant payments at the Point of Interaction (e.g. e-commerce portals, points-of-sale-PoS, tax and contribution payments) and in payments between people (P2P);
- security and resilience against cyber and operational risks, including with regard to the ability to detect and prevent new forms of fraud;
- the traceability of transactions as well as the authentication of those involved, including in relation to developments in digital identity management;
- interoperability with other payment services, through the use of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) based on shared standards;
- financial inclusion, transparency and consumer protection, including in relation to privacy profiles (GDPR);
- the ability to adapt to future operational contexts determined by rapid technological evolution.
For more information, please see the Rules and Provisions of the third Call for Proposals.
Milano Hub - Third Call for Proposals Clarification
For the purposes of the reserve place provided for in Section 7.1 of the Third Call for Proposals' Provisions, in relation to the requirements provided for respectively in lett. c) of art. 25 of the Decree Law no. 179/2012 for innovative start-ups and lett. a) of art. 4 of Decree Law no. 3/2015 for innovative SMEs, it is sufficient the establishment in one of the European Union member states or in states party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area, provided that all the other requirements of the above Decrees are met.
Rome, July 19, 2024
Chronology
On the 5th of June the third Call for Proposals was launched.
On the 24th of July the application window closed (see Infographics).
The evaluation panel in charge of selecting the projects has been appointed.
The list of selected projects was published on 29 November 2024. For more details on the projects see Selected projects - Description.
Procedure of selection
The projects can be submitted by three different categories of Italian or foreign entities, for each of which there is a dedicated operational area of Milano Hub:
- Fintech Hub: non-bank/non-financial firms (e.g. technology solution providers), natural persons;
- Innovation Hub: banking, financial and insurance intermediaries;
- Research & Development Hub: universities, research institutions, sector association and other entities.
Projects are evaluated based on four criteria:
- 'Relevance', which measures how relevant projects are to the theme of the Call for Proposals;
- 'Suitability' which measures the consistency of the project with the institutional purposes of the Bank of Italy;
- 'Value', which includes the following sub-criteria: system relevance and scalability, innovation, completeness, and sustainability;
- 'Practicability', which includes the sub-criteria of feasibility, measurability and security.
The four criteria and their respective sub-criteria will be weighted differently depending on the project's operational area.
For any further enquiry or clarification, please see the Rules and Provisions of the third Call for Proposals, the FAQs section or contact us to info@milanohub.bancaditalia.it.
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