PBZ - Embracing and Integrating AI

PBZ is a leading Croatian bank that is committed to fostering financial stability, prosperity, and accessibility in Croatia. As a member of the Intesa Sanpaolo Group, PBZ offers a wide range of products and services for individuals, businesses, and institutions. It also pioneers innovative digital banking solutions and is deeply involved in initiatives to promote financial literacy and education.

The banking industry is constantly evolving, and businesses need to find new ways to innovate and stay ahead of the competition while staying in touch with contemporary solutions. PBZ recognized the importance of embracing and integrating AI capabilities into its organization. However, like many organizations, PBZ faced challenges in doing so.

PBZ wanted to bring together a diverse group of employees from different sectors. This would allow them to share knowledge and experience on the spot, and to work together towards a goal of developing new and innovative solutions that could benefit the entire organization.

By bringing together a wide range of employees, PBZ could break down silos and foster a more collaborative approach to innovation. This would help to ensure that AI was not just being used by IT experts, but by employees from all parts of the organization who could see the potential benefits of the technology.

PBZ addressed these challenges by partnering with CROZ, a strategic IT partner with expertise in Al. With a clear goal in mind and through a detailed internal analysis of our client, we recognized the needs of and helped PBZ to organize and deliver the”haCHATon”, a hackathon designed to generate new ideas for Al-powered solutions. The project brought together a diverse group of participants from across the organization, including employees from Retail, Corporate, Risk, and Customer Support.

“Considering that PBZ has always been a leader in recognizing and using new technologies, the arrival of generative Al seemed like a logical and natural step to organize such an experiment in the form of a hackathon. This is actually an ideal mix of team building and getting acquainted with new technology through everyday challenges. Through the hackathon, we also strengthened the synergy between the business and IT sectors, encouraging them to work as a team to come up with new improvements based on generative Al to further enhance the products we offer or will offer to our clients.”

– Draženko Kopljar, COO @ PBZ

The hackathon was successful in generating over 60+ new ideas, many of which have the potential to be developed into real-world solutions. In addition, the project helped raise awareness of the possibilities that generative Al holds within PBZ and strengthened the synergy between their internal business and IT sectors.