Investire | October 2025
It’s called Scalable, a new development in the financial sector that recently hit the headlines when it became a fully-fledged bank operating in the European Union in September 2025. Scalable is a German fintech company founded in 2014 in Munich by Erik Podzuweit, Florian Prucker – co-CEO – and Adam French, young start-uppers who joined forces with their former professor Stefan Mittnik.
The two current co-CEOs (born in 1981 and 1983) both have experience at Goldman Sachs, where Alessandro Saldutti (born in 1994), Scalable’s county head in Italy, also comes.
Scalable’s mission—which counts BlackRock among its investors—is as simple as it is complex to achieve: to democratize investments by making them accessible to everyone, bringing to market a sort of “Netflix of investments,” a public-facing app that allows anyone to plan their retirement for just a few euros a month.
A mission worthy of solemn praise, especially in Italy, where awareness of pension issues is extremely low (less than 10%), especially among younger people (under 30), who, 70% of whom delude themselves into thinking they can count on public pensions and government incentives to face their retirement.
To understand whether Scalable is truly scalable, it’s important to take stock of the Italian market, starting with three facts.
The first is that in Italy, the opportunity to convert hundreds of billions of euros of liquidity into managed savings is too tempting, and so it’s natural for newcomers like Scalable to join the incumbents.
The second is that in Italy, a winning model exists: that of financial advisory networks, which has found success by focusing on the dialogue between a professional and their client.
The consulting network model is gaining market share and clients to the detriment of universal banks, which are nevertheless organizing themselves, some more than others, increasingly placing professionals equipped with tools enhanced by Artificial Intelligence at the center.
The market share of financial advisor networks is growing especially among high-net-worth and senior individuals, precisely because their key asset—the financial advisor—must be properly leveraged to reach a client segment capable of appreciating its value, literally.
The third fact, a consequence of the previous two, is that in Italy there is a huge potential market represented by over twenty million clients, not served by financial advisor networks nor adequately supported by universal banks.
Therefore, if Scalable were able to make the financial advisory model accessible to all, replacing the physical advisor with a robo-advisor powered by Artificial Intelligence, it could be a huge success.
Another option could be to offer self-employed or bank-independent professionals an opportunity to operationally support the decisions of even the most sophisticated clients (perhaps with Scalable Wealth, soon to be available in Italy).
The gamble could be a winning one, as Netflix’s was, but in Italy, despite a sharp decline, some people still go to the movies. The number of clients who invest independently (so-called traders) remains stable, while the number of clients who want to use a professional is growing.
This is the case today, but there’s no certainty about the future, and Scalable seems to be banking on this.
Nicola Ronchetti