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- Italian bank pushes platform banking frontier as first in Italy to integrate 3rd-party savings products
- Cooperation kicks off the German fintech’s expansion into Italy
- Raisin marketplace API-integrated in fully online offering for Banca Sella customers
Italian bank Banca Sella and pan-European deposits marketplace Raisin are cooperating to give the bank’s customers access for the first time to third-party savings products. Through the integration of Raisin’s marketplace, Banca Sella customers will be able to invest from their Banca Sella accounts in select deposits at other Italian banks and banks across Europe. The partnership makes Banca Sella the first bank in Italy to offer its customers external deposit products.
Traditional bank takes lead on open banking innovation
Founded in 1886 and one of Italy’s largest privately-owned, independent banks, Banca Sella was the first to launch an open banking platform in Italy. The bank is thus positioned to lead on partnering with fintechs such as Raisin. The entirely digital offer, integrated into Banca Sella’s online banking platform, has been launched first as a pilot program, with the offer to be extended in the coming months to all the bank’s retail customers.
Raisin enters Italian savings market via partnership with Banca Sella
The integration with Banca Sella represents Raisin’s entry into the Italian savings market with a localised platform, the fintech’s eighth country launch. Based in Berlin, Raisin has built a marketplace of savings products available to depositors across Europe, featuring deposits from banks in 25 countries. The fintech focuses on competitive interest rates as well as providing consumers access across borders, choice, transparency, and the convenience of a fully digital process.
“Raisin’s integration with Banca Sella is an important step for us into the Italian savings market, bringing to customers in Italy the convenience and choice of a marketplace,” explains Federico Roesler Franz, Country Manager Italy at Raisin. “Banca Sella’s forward-looking approach to technology and digital banking has provided Raisin with an excellent entry point into one of Europe’s largest economies.”
“Banca Sella immediately understood the importance of seizing the opportunities that open banking offers,” says Luca Ferrarese, Head of Retail Business of Banca Sella. “This is how we make innovative and cutting-edge solutions available to our customers, in line with their needs, and it has put the bank on a continuous path of digital transformation. Partnering with Raisin, one of the most established fintech companies in Europe, represents a further element of this strategy that sees banks and fintechs working together to offer completely new, effective and efficient solutions.”
Raisin co-founder and CEO Dr. Tamaz Georgadze adds: “We’re very happy to fulfil our mission of reaching Italian depositors through a partnership with one of Italy’s oldest, most established banks. It’s also a great illustration that the potential for innovation depends not on how new a financial institution is but on its vision. Our partnership with Banca Sella enables Raisin to take an important step toward our vision, as Raisin products are now available on a localized platform to savers in all of Europe’s largest economies.”
About Banca Sella
Founded in 1886 in Biella, Banca Sella is the retail and commercial bank of Sella Group, Italy’s largest privately owned and independent banking group whose activities include retail and commercial banking, private banking and wealth management, corporate and investment banking, payment systems, open banking, and information technology services. Sella promotes entrepreneurship and the fintech ecosystem with its open innovation centers (Sellalab) for corporates and startups alike, thanks to which the first Italian challenger bank (Hype) was born in 2014. Sella also runs the largest fintech community in Italy (the Fintech District in Milan). In line with the Group’s purpose – to build the financial ecosystem of the future – Banca Sella was also the first to launch an open banking platform in Italy.
About Raisin
A trailblazer for open banking and the leading pan-European one-stop shop for online savings and investments, Berlin-based fintech Raisin was founded in 2012 by Dr. Tamaz Georgadze (CEO), Dr. Frank Freund (CFO) and Michael Stephan (COO). Raisin’s platforms — under the brand WeltSparen in the German-speaking world — are breaking down barriers to better savings for European consumers and SMEs: Raisin’s marketplace offers simple access at no charge to attractive and guaranteed deposit products from all over Europe, as well as globally diversified, cost-effective ETF portfolios and pension products (currently available in Germany). With one online registration, customers can choose from all available investments and subsequently manage their accounts. Since launch in 2013, Raisin has placed 28 billion EUR for more than 300,000 customers in 28+ European countries and 100 partner banks. Raisin was named to Europe’s top 5 fintechs by the renowned FinTech50 awards and is backed by prestigious European and American investors such as btov Ventures, Goldman Sachs, PayPal Ventures, Thrive Capital, Index Ventures, Orange Digital Ventures and Ribbit Capital. Raisin UK in Manchester, banking-as-a-service provider Raisin Bank in Frankfurt, Raisin Pension, and Raisin Technology and Raisin U.S. all belong to Raisin.