Fintech Survey of Unsupervised Italian Operators 2026 (Banca d'Italia)

Summary

• The Bank of Italy identified 336 fintech companies and 157 operators responded, about 47% of the perimeter.p.7
• 49% of respondents were founded 5 to 10 years ago, 83% are limited liability companies (Srl) and 69% are registered as startups or innovative SMEs or meet the requirements.p.11
• 73% of respondents have a business-to-business model, 5% are B2C and 22% are B2B2C.p.16
• Artificial intelligence is the most widely used technology, adopted by 70% of respondents.p.19
• Own funds are the main source of financing (84%), followed by bank financing (19%) and public contributions (12%), and 64% invest less than €200,000 a year in fintech products and services.p.23
• 26% of companies interrupted one or more projects in the last year, versus 16% in the previous edition.p.28
• GDPR is considered relevant by 83% of companies (up from 75%), while AML/CFT, DORA and the AI Act each stand at 59%.p.31

Key insights

1. 67% of the 157 registered offices are in Northern Italy, and 44% of respondents are headquartered in Milan.p.12
2. 93% of companies have fewer than 100 employees.p.12
3. 28% of companies already operate abroad, with Europe the area of greatest interest (87%).p.14
4. APIs are the predominant technical interaction tool with clients, indicated by 61% of respondents.p.17
5. Process automation is the most frequent objective (62% of companies), followed by meeting new or latent needs (58%).p.17
6. Among companies using AI as the main technology, autonomous agents are cited by 34%, and predictive and generative AI by 33% each.p.20
7. 66% of companies collaborate with at least one supervised intermediary.p.27
8. 56% and 50% of respondents give a negative or extremely negative judgment of regulation's impact on operating costs and time to market respectively.p.30
9. The share relying exclusively on external compliance consultants rose from 31% to 53%.p.32
10. 57% protect innovation through patents and/or software registration, 25% only through NDAs and 18% use no protection.p.26