UniCredit S p A : U-City wins gold at the Efma-Accenture Banking Innovation Awards 2021

UniCredit's U-City won the gold medal in the Future Workforce category at the eighth edition of the Efma-Accenture Banking Innovation Awards 2021 -innovationinbanking.efma.com. The digital gamification initiative was highlighted for improving employee knowledge of digital products and services, enabling them to become digital ambassadors for their customers. The virtual award ceremony took place on Thursday 18 November.

This prestigious award identifies and rewards the best banking innovations and saw a record number of entries this year - more than 800 from nearly 300 institutions in 73 countries. Winners in each of the eight categories were chosen by a jury composed of representatives from the world's leading financial institutions, based on three criteria: originality; strategic ability to generate long-term competitive advantage and return on investment; and adaptability for use in other markets and countries.

U-City is UniCredit's first online learning game to support the digital transformation of businesses. It is aimed at enhancing employee knowledge of the bank's digital services through gamification. The objective of the game is to transform an imaginary city into a futuristic metropolis where respect for the environment and the adoption of new technologies are key to making U-City as digital and sustainable as possible to win the game.

The project is the result of collaboration between various areas in the bank such as business, communication and training to design a digital concept that enables UniCredit colleagues to learn in an innovative and engaging way while also accelerating digital transformation and supporting business results. For example, employee digital adoption has risen from 77% to 93% and digital transactions have increased by 53% year-on-year.

The U-City project was launched in March 2021 and completed in July of the same year. Participation was significant: in 100 days of play, over 2,500 employees generated more than 150,000 challenges and earned over 3 billion experience points, 5,000 gadgets and various other prizes. This response exceeds some of the best industry benchmarks - actively involving 10% of the bank's employees. U-City is also part of the BEST4Digital project, dedicated to the employees of UniCredit's Italian network.

"We are proud to have won this prestigious award for the first time thanks to the U-City project, UniCredit's first learning game, born out of collaboration across the bank between business, communication and training colleagues, who pooled their skills, innovative ideas, vision and determination, and worked as a team to make this project happen" - commented Ilaria Dalla Riva, Head of People & Culture Italy at UniCredit. "Digital transformation remains a strategic objective for UniCredit. Harnessing the power of digitalisation and applying it across the board to strategies, processes and services, to support our people and our customers, is essential for us," she concluded.

Milan, 22 November 2021

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