Poste Italiane has entered a new agreement with digital wealth management firm Moneyfarm, which will see the Italian infrastructure network investing a total of €40m into the latter.
Through the agreement, Poste Italiane’s clients will now be able to access Moneyfarm’s digital investment services and the move is said to align with Poste’s Deliver 2022 strategic plan.
Moneyfarm is an independent digital wealth management company operating in Italy, the UK and Germany. Founded in 2011, it offers online financial advisory and execution services, with a focus on ETF based portfolio management.
Matteo Del Fante, Poste Italiane CEO and general manager commented: “Our Deliver 2022 strategy for financial services is focused on the expansion of our product offer to become the ‘financial one-stop shop’ for our 35 million customers.
“Thanks to Poste’s modular and flexible open architecture IT system, we are able to integrate innovative players like Moneyfarm in order to develop a multichannel wealth management platform that is tailored to different customer needs.
“Customer engagement is key in the evolution of financial services and we believe Poste has the right blend of physical and digital capabilities to capture market opportunities”.
Poste Italiane will assume the responsibility for managing customer relationships, including customer service and CRM in a move that is claimed to be one of the “largest API-based agreements in the European asset management industry in terms of customer base.”
“This ground-breaking open innovation agreement represents a critical milestone for Moneyfarm,” said Giovanni Daprà, Moneyfarm CEO.
“The value of our service model, which blends technology with human expertise (hybrid model), received important recognition today”.
The partnership leverages on an open innovation system, with Moneyfarm’s innovative technology effectively integrated into Poste Italiane’s modular and flexible digital ecosystem.
Furthermore, customer profiling, new investment portfolio definition and real-time performance monitoring of investments at any time are fully digital.
Paolo Galvani, Moneyfarm Chairman added: “We are very excited to embark on this endeavour with Poste Italiane, whose brand is deeply rooted in the everyday lives of Italian investors and savers.
“Poste has a long track record of contributing to the innovation of financial services in Italy. I am confident that our agreement represents an important step for innovation in the Italian asset management industry and will trigger a renewed focus for customers’ needs.”
The private placement agreement of €40m is expected to close by the end of 2019, subject to regulatory authorities’ approval, and will provide Poste with a non-controlling stake in the company.
