Michele Modina

The Quality of Customer Relationships in Different Clusters of Italian Banks: Evidence and Implications

The M&A process, the financial crisis and regulatory and technical innovations have made the competition in the banking market more severe. The level of service and competence are now the key criteria of the banking offer where the long-term content of customer relationship is a critical factor of every bank’s success. Drawing on available literature, the aim of this paper is to verify customers’ perceptions and experiences relating to banks that still operate on a stand-alone basis or have merged into another bank in order to emphasize if and to what extent a strong relationship with their customers is promoted or guaranteed. The data were collected through different focus groups and during one-to-one interviews. The results highlight important differences in the two clusters of customers. Results are discussed and managerial implications are drawn.

The Evolution of a Social Service Crowdfunding Platform Towards an Investing Logic: The Meridonare Case Study

This study aims to configure an innovative financial structure for social impact investments. Framing on the Theory of Change, we apply an exploratory analysis to the Meridonare case study, a donation/reward crowdfunding platform led by the Banco di Napoli Foundation and engaging in philanthropy in the social sector. Over the years, the platform has changed the Foundation’s resource allocation procedures through the adoption of an “impact model” evaluation process. Accordingly, for each financing request, Meridonare defines a social evaluation report allowing the Foundation to establish which projects are worthy of additional funds as rewards. However, in its current state, the Meridonare crowdfunding platform lacks the investing perspective, thus we propose an innovative instrument of Social Finance: the Social Bond Crowdfunding based (SBCb), arising from the “pay-for-performance” rewarding mechanism. Therefore, the role of the Foundation shifts from impact facilitator to impact generator.