ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses effects and causes accompanying the introduction of new information technologies in the Italian banking systems. It illustrates in a comparative perspective the recent applications of Internet technologies to the classic banking activities in the Italian context, using the following categories: payment services, trading, asset management, lending and origination. The chapter provides an empirical study on the introduction of e-banking in the first 110 individual Italian banks up to May 2000. It discusses in a short run perspective a possible model to analyse the introduction of e-banking in Italy, using a simple theoretical model consistent with the more recent theories of bank behaviour, based on the role of managerial incentives. The chapter offers recommendations, advancing a 'new Schumpeterian' view which states that at least some individual banks could become active protagonists in the changes that the way of producing, distributing and purchasing may register in the coming times.
