Workinvoice, fintech of our ecosystem, by welcoming the new legislation has been able to create a new market in partnership with CRIF and PWC. We asked CEO Matteo Tarroni to tell us what it is all about.

The first platform to sell and buy tax credits is created. How does it work? Is it the first in Italy or in Europe?

The creation of a secondary market for entirely digital transferable tax credits and realized through a marketplace is certainly a novelty for Italy. We analyzed a couple of platforms in the USA, which have increased the liquidity of the State and Federal Tax Credits.

What is your role in the initiative?

Workinvoice creates digital infrastructures and designs the related processes that allow counterparties to buy and sell credits on a marketplace. In the case of the trade receivables market (operational from 2014), these are companies wanting to sell their invoices to specialized investment funds in order to anticipate their collection. In the case of this new platform, these are companies and banks wanting to sell their tax credits to other companies that want to reduce their tax burden.
A simple concept indeed, but one that requires an infrastructure that designs processes and implements them digitally and efficiently to provide marketplace members with the best user experience while containing operating costs and ultimately the sustainability of the marketplace itself, which must break even quicker. This is what Workinvoice does.

When was the collaboration with Crif born? And how did you work together?

We have been working together with the CRIF Group since 2018, with both its “souls”: the corporate (Cribis) and the financial institutions (CRIF). Since 2018 the Group has also entered the capital of Workinvoice developing the first real industrial partnership in fintech in Italy.
Together with them we developed this new idea, very focused on time-to-market as up to 4 months ago the Superecobonus did not even exist. For fiscal know-how we involved PWC as technical advisor.

With this platform a new market opens up, how do you expect it to evolve in the future?

The short-term objective is to give liquidity to the bonus provided by the Relaunch Decree. The possibility to monetize it quickly becomes a kind of “incentive to the incentive“. Afterwards we may see a financialisation of the marketplace when asset managers and financial institutions enter the marketplace, also keeping in mind the role of market makers. This is only the first asset that can be exchanged on the marketplace: others will follow. A new freely investable asset class will be created, as we have already done for trade receivables represented by invoices.

What are the benefits of this initiative for the end user?

On the marketplace operate companies and banks that have an interest in monetizing the credits on one side and on the other side companies that want to acquire the credits to offset the tax burden on all taxes paid through the F24 form (including withholding taxes on employee income).
For both sides of the market these are the main advantages and differences compared to off-market transactions:

• Continuous availability of tax credits: Users of the platform will be able to assess the possibility of buying and/or selling tax credits at any time.
• Advanced exchange mechanism: Thanks to its experience in the field of trade receivables, Workinvoice has an in-depth knowledge of transaction management mechanisms.
• Process compliance and certainty of credit: If the assignee of the credit has contributed to the violation of tax regulations, he is jointly and severally liable for the tax and sanctions shall be applied against him. It is therefore essential to demonstrate good faith, a circumstance that is difficult to decline in an absolutely new context such as that of the Superbonus. Thanks to the participation of PwC in the project for the creation of the platform, a set of procedures and documents to be kept to meet the need to demonstrate good faith has been prepared.
• Economic efficiency: The platform is based on a matching mechanism between supply and demand that eliminates potential market inefficiencies and lowers the commission level of the service (also thanks to the digitization of the end to end process).
• Speed: The entire process of buying and selling and online compliance checks guarantees shorter timescales compared to the most common offline processes. This will allow the assignees to also cover also the portion of taxes that cannot be estimated at the beginning of the year and for which the time window between the identification of the tax debt and the date of payment is narrower.

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CRIF has joined our community as a corporate member. We interviewed the Managing Director Enrico Lodi who illustrated the goals of the partnership with Fintech District and the activities carried out by this company specialized in credit bureau and business information, outsourcing and processing services, and credit solutions. Here’s what he told us.

Enjoy your read and don’t miss the video!

For over 30 years CRIF has been helping its partners in making the right decisions, through a unique mix of business knowledge, information and cutting-edge technology. This company has continuous innovation, the use of the most advanced technologies and a deep information management culture in its DNA as intrinsic characteristics. These are the elements that also distinguish the significant investments in research and development that CRIF makes every year.

CRIF is now a global company with 70 companies present in more than 30 countries and active with its teams of specialists in dozens of other countries found in 4 continents.

To meet the challenges of digital transformation, CRIF operates as a Digital Aggregator able to provide added value to all those involved in the new ecosystem.

The objective of CRIF is, in fact, to operate effectively and efficiently to support the players of different markets, improving the experience of their customers – families and businesses – through services that anticipate their needs quickly and easily.

CRIF was also mentioned in 2018, for the sixth consecutive year, in the prestigious IDC FinTech ranking, coming at 35th place in the world and the top spot among Italian companies. This is a further confirmation of the constant commitment and quality of its solutions, which allow it to support its customers every day in their growth process.

CRIF, in line with its strategies and growth guidelines, has chosen to collaborate with Fintech District, one of the most advanced international fintech hubs, to facilitate the meeting with fintech startups and develop projects that offer the market high-performance and innovative digital solutions in B2C and B2B2C segments.

If you wish to stay updated about news, events and initiatives of the Fintech District, subscribe to our newsletter HERE