Agreement sees UniCredit take a minority stake in the business
UniCredit has today announced a collaboration with FinDynamic, an Italian fintech company offering dynamic discounting programs, as it seeks to enhance its working capital offering for corporate clients.
As part of the agreement, UniCredit has also taken a minority equity stake in the business - highlighting the bank's willingness to partner with the right fintechs in order to drive innovation.
Corporates large and small are increasingly searching for effective, tailored working capital solutions to address their individual needs. Dynamic discounting is a solution that allows clients to offer their suppliers early payment of their invoices in exchange for a discount. The discount is directly applied to the total amount of the invoice and its value changes dynamically in relation to the number of days discounted from the original invoice's due date. This facilitates the use of the buyer's strong cash position while providing liquidity to their suppliers.
FinDynamic's solution, leveraging on its proprietary technology, allows both the buyer and its suppliers to automatically view invoices through a web-based or mobile platform and easily select approved invoices for early payment.
UniCredit is one of the first banks to join the dynamic discounting platform and the solution is currently in the roll-out phase to corporate customers in Italy.
Francesco Giordano, UniCredit's Co-CEO of Commercial Banking for Western Europe, said: "UniCredit is strongly committed to developing innovative and efficient solutions for its clients. As part of this, we are collaborating with selected fintechs in order to improve our corporate client offering and meet changing client needs. Today's announcement is a clear example of this strategy in motion. We believe that the service offered by FinDynamic is the right fit for our clients' and their suppliers' working capital needs in the current market environment, providing a true value-add for all parties."
Enrico Viganò, FinDynamic's Founder and CEO, said: "This is a very important partnership for us. It consolidates our image and gives further authority to our Platform, which is the most innovative in the field of Supply Chain Finance, helping to guarantee the strong growth and development of FinDynamic. UniCredit's investment in us confirms the Bank's leadership in Italy in identifying and developing innovative services for corporate customers."
Milan, 10 June 2019
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