The world's major banks have embarked on a race to innovate, which has resulted in a large number of patent filings. However, the patent portfolio of French banks, and more broadly of European banks, remains weak compared to that of American and Chinese banks. Here's why.
Few patents for European banks
European banks lag behind. The European Patent Office (EPO) has registered a total of some fifty patents in the name of BNP Paribas. Moreover, no French bank features in INPI's top 50 patent filers. This ranking is dominated by major industrial groups such as PSA, Safran and Valeo.
According to several experts, the fact that European banks have historically had few patents is not a cause for concern, as intellectual property rules are not the same. However, the risk for these players is that the Fintech wave on patentable technologies such as Blockchain will pass them by.
Bank of America among the most active banks
Since 2020, Bank of America has filed a significant number of patents. In the first six months of 2021, the bank was granted 227 patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, 23% more than the previous year over the same period. Its portfolio now totals 5,000 patents and applications, from 6,000 inventors based in the United States and a dozen other countries. And it has a substantial budget: $14 billion a year, of which $10 billion is devoted to R&D. Of this amount, $3 billion is dedicated each year to the development of innovations. Thanks to record profits, this budget is set to rise to $3.4 billion.
The patents filed by the second-largest U.S. bank in terms of assets mainly concern :
- Artificial Intelligence (40%),
- Blockchain,
- payment technologies,
- mobile banking,
- data analysis.
Among them, for example, is the integration of AI into conversations between a customer and an agent, a patented innovation that provides for the use of automated tools in the exchange after transferring the call to an operator.
Another patent granted relates to augmented reality imaging and authentication. In concrete terms, this involves integrating an augmented reality terminal into the customer's mobile wallet to authorize electronic transactions.
Strong annual growth in deposits in China
China is widening the gap with the USA in the patent race, with 68,720 patent applications filed in 2021, representing annual growth of 16.1%. Whereas the gap between the two powers was just 1,000 patents in 2019, it now stands at 10,000.
Computer technologies accounted for the largest share of demand, followed by digital communications, medical technologies and electrical machinery.