The Italian telecommunications operator joins the community contributing to the innovation of the finance industry

Fastweb has in his DNA the innovation, changing the market rules since 2000 introducing Fiber Optic communications in Italy. The company keeps pursuing its “infrastructured OTT” convergent strategy, leveraging a combination of fixed and mobile new generation infrastructure to offer gigabit connectivity to its customers while, in the meantime, focusing on a “OTT like” approach in terms of simplicity, effectiveness and customer-orientation.

The membership is an opportunity for Fastweb to be an active contributor to the growth of fintech ecosystem in Italy, enabling connections between the traditional finance industry and the innovative fintech community with the aim of speeding up the digital transformation of the Italian financial sector.

Fastweb enriches the traditional telco offer, based on telephony and connectivity services, with a dedicated range of ICT services characterized by security, privacy, data protection and all the strong requirements that rules the actual Italian finance market.

With the acquisition of 7Layers in 2020, Fastweb enhanced his skills on cybersecurity, strengthening the partnership with all the companies that need to be compliant with the Italian data protection rules and need to strength security aspects to remain competitive in the digital future.

With its renewed private and public cloud offer, Fastweb is the tech player ready to collaborate with all Fintech District’s members to power up the fintech Italian proposition, with the ambition to actively collaborate to redesign of the future of the international market.

Fastweb’s Fintech District membership is an opportunity for all the startups and the finance companies belonging to the community to be drivers of the change for the entire Finance sector in Italy, exploiting advanced technologies and dedicated services, borrowing Fastweb’s experience as a technology enabler of the major players in the industry focusing the companies to a renewed frictionless customer’s experience.

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One of the fintech players who has best interpreted the philosophy of open banking with concreteness and initiative is PayDo. We asked their CEO Donato Vadruccio to tell us about the steps taken so far with Plick, his vision and plans for the future.

Open Banking in Italy. How is it developing from your point of view and what could still be done?

Open Banking is an unstoppable process because it is useful to all actors giving them the ability to offer the best services to users allowing the acceleration of innovation. The model, initially born in Europe on the basis of needs and intuitions, has seen a recent acceleration thanks to the European directive PSD2. Although Open Banking in Italy is now a reality, at present its concrete implementation seems to be lower than in other European countries.
We can say that the great challenge of digital transformation, necessary for our country’s system, passes through both Open Banking and API with the support of the fintech ecosystem which is in turn able to be a partner in the realization of this great opportunity of acceleration for the banking system, from credit to payments just to name a few examples.
Open Banking is synonymous with collaboration. In my opinion, we need to build a lot in the co-creation of useful services for companies and end-users.This can be achieved with more joint input from the different actors, banks, fintechs, companies, etc. In addition, some of the ongoing PSD2 interventions will simplify access and use of services.
In short, Open Banking can make a decisive contribution to the process of digitisation of financial services, but, above all,it can bring great added value to households and businesses.

How did Plick seize the Open Banking opportunity?

Open Banking represents the natural path for those who, like us, are fintech operators and provide high value-added services to Banks, Payment Institutions and Electronic Money Institutions throughout Europe and can seize the opportunity provided by Open Innovation.
We have built a flexible infrastructure, which operates exclusively through APIs. We immediately seized the opportunity to publish our APIs on the main Open Banking platforms in order to shape open initiatives. On the one hand, this model facilitates the technical activation of Banks, Payment Institutions and also companies that use these platforms and, at the same time, enables the creation of high value-added services based on customisation, including process customisation.
I would like to remind you that PayDo with Plick has all the requirements to be a concrete partner, whose objective is to support and be an enabler, and not a competitor. We enable simplified payments, which are very useful for companies and individuals, with the possibility of affecting the processes related to the payment itself.

Which collaborations have you undertaken with both banks and platforms and with what results?

At the moment there are several banks and IMELs, in Italy and abroad, with whom we collaborate and to whom we provide our platform with different services, both for their retail and corporate clients. As far as Open Banking platforms are concerned, our APIs are present on Fabrick, Nexi Open and Cedacri, which are synonymous with guarantee and competence, and represent a further sign of trust for us. As mentioned earlier, the concrete result of these collaborations is mainly the advantage of simple integration and, in particular, the possibility of jointly building customised solutions, based on the specific needs of banks, IMELs or companies. These solutions often solve the need for optimisation of processes and underlying information, and not only of the payment in the strict sense of the word, which is obviously simplified thanks to Plick, which sends it via WhatsApp, SMS or email even without knowing the IBAN, throughout Europe and even in bulk.
This collaboration has enabled Open Banking platforms to implement solutions for businesses: for example, it guarantees mass mailings, such as in the case of refunds to customers by utilities or consumer credit companies or claims payments for insurance companies.

What are your next projects?

We are working on further consolidating our business in Italy, thanks to the partners who continue to choose us. We will continue to develop new services, such as the very recent “Digital Letter of Credit”, which was initially created to meet the specific needs of a biomedical company. We will soon be announcing new partnerships to support payment solutions and in some cases specific supply chains that will further demonstrate the open nature of our project.

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After the selection phase, the co-creation phase has begun. The Sella Data Challenge organised by Banca Sella in collaboration with Fintech District and the technological support of Fabrick continues in the name of open innovation. We asked Doris Messina, Chief Digital Transformation Office, to take stock of the situation and tell us about the next steps.

Did you expect such a high level of participation in the Sella Data Challenge from the Italian fintech ecosystem? How do you interpret it?

We are immersed in, and part of, the ecosystem and we appreciate its continuous growth; we have signed important partnerships and have others in the pipeline, and through the continuous dialogue we have with startups it has emerged how data is a fundamental resource for creating products and services that meet the expressed and unexpressed needs of customers.
At Sella we were confident that there would be interest and we are proud of the response, not only in quantitative, but also qualitative terms. The response obtained is a validation that of the choice of openness made together with the recent strategic plan and the first step in a path of creation, co-creation, learning and mutual growth. The large number of applications received allowed the selection teams to bring onboard different companies in terms of maturity, team composition and with heterogeneous use case proposals: from customer behaviors predictive models, to computing ESG scores and many other valuable projects

How is this co-creation phase taking place?

Co-creation for us certainly means doing things together, but also, and above all, making resources available and in common for others. By opening the data sandbox we want to allow participants to use Sella’s wealth of information and know-how to improve a product they already have, to add functionality or to create a specific use case that adds value to customers and at the same time allows them to grow. We are very careful to balance our presence at specific times when we make ourselves available, but without interfering with the specific creative and generative process of each team.
We ourselves are learning a lot from the relationship with the start-ups and this is also the phase in during which we improve and perfect the sandbox.

What is Sella’s role in this phase of the Sella Data Challenge?

We have been working with the teams to help them focus on a specific use case. We are now going through the preparation phase and our role is to support and assist them in giving meaning to and understanding the organisation and structure. In the coming weeks the focus will shift from technology to business with product manager colleagues providing information and feedback to refine what will then be presented.

In the light of the selected realities, what do you expect to see at the end of this phase?

In designing this initiative our focus has been on a mutually beneficial collaboration. We want to give the startups something that will help them grow and as they grow it will have an impact on the Bank and its customers. We therefore expect to see how creativity and collective intelligence can make leaps forward in terms of experience and service model, we expect to learn how to leverage the best of both worlds and build long-term relationships, we expect to build new services and products for our customers and for those of the startups that collaborate with us.

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Banca Sella, one of our corporate members, launched a challenge to gather new ideas and solutions. It’s called Sella Data Challenge and it’s addressed to all fintech startups and scale-ups that want to do open innovation. Doris Messina, Chief Digital Transformation Officer in Banca Sella, explains the reasons behind the initiative

What do you expect from this initiative and what are your main objectives?

Thanks to this initiative, we want to initiate a new way of co-creation with participants and identify fintech startups and scale-ups with which to develop partnerships for new products and data driven solutions. This is a part of the opportunities offered by open innovation and cross-fertilisation.

For the first time, the logic of open banking is being applied to data and it is precisely for this reason that we have chosen to make our data available through the Sella Data Challenge. We are sure that it will receive stimuli, ideas and solutions which together can build new solutions and new services to put on the market.

How does this “challenge” work?

We are inviting start-ups and scale-ups,in particular, to get involved and develop new solutions, starting from the analysis of customer data made available anonymously by Banca Sella on the “data sandbox“:a real testing and development environment, consistent with privacy protection regulations, which allows you to view data that has been made anonymous and can then be used to carry out the desired analysis and consequent proposals.

The selected participants will have two and a half months, starting from mid-March 2021, to develop and present their idea through a working prototype, a demo, an application or simply a “proof of concept”.

This initiative should be contextualised within Banca Sella’s overall strategy. Which one?

The Sella Data Challenge is an integral part of our innovation path: it is impossible to innovate only from within and what will make the difference in the future are the partnerships within the fintech ecosystem. Contamination and collaboration are now, more than ever, the key to fast, agile and effective innovation. Open Banking is proving this because it actually leads to an exponential increase in the potential of financial players to make the best use of data and technology.

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Change Capital‘s mission is to enhance the potential of professionals and companies through a digital ecosystem of financial services through which the CFO, entrepreneur or consultant can easily manage all their files and documents by getting in touch with the major fintechs to ask for funding. “Our core business – explains CEO Francesco Brami – is to be able to find alternative sources of financing to the more traditional ones, bringing the culture of fintech throughout Italy and allowing companies and professionals to connect with the main platforms of the country thanks to an tool easy- to -use tool, within everyone’s reach and that allows an incredible saving of time”.

Change Capital is the first marketplace of corporate finance, the first network that connects companies, consultants and the world of finance. “We turn to SMEs because this is precisely the segment that has the most difficulty in obtaining liquidity – Brami explains – We are intermediaries managing to identify in every situation the best solution for the company. As a true marketplace of digital financial services we provide access to most of the solutions on the market and we also follow the companies in all those regional and national calls for tenders to obtain financing at zero interest or non-repayable: the so-called subsidized finance”.

Change Capital can be considered an innovative scale- up inserted in a dynamic and fast-growing context and is already structured at an organizational and managerial level to ensure a smooth and organic growth. “We think in an agile way and invest in our competitive advantage through technologies, partnerships, marketing and highly qualified personnel. From day one we generate cash flow to support expansion. The next step is to arrive all over Europe and we are already ready for this – adds Brami – we have lived on open innovation since we being inside an ecosystem, namely Officina Agile, where six realities all linked to digital transformation live together. We also have partnerships with the biggest players in the world of fintech both in Italy and in Europe and we are creating synergies with several established companies with a single goal: to meet the needs of our customers in an agile way

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Fabrick and Bandyer have launched Virtual Branch, a solution that allows banks and corporates to continue to be operational in the relationship with the client, despite the restrictions due to the coronavirus. It is a service created to meet the needs of companies and banks in an emergency but not an end in itself and not even limited in time because at the conclusion of the period of social distance the product created by the partnership with Bandyer can be branded and used in everyday life as a useful alternative.

In this double interview Filippo Rocca (Bandyer) and Alberto Mussinatto (Fabrick) tell us about the potential of Virtual Branch and what can be achieved thanks to open banking and an open ecosystem like Fabrick’s one.

Filippo Rocca, CEO and Founder of Bandyer

What is the Virtual Branch solution for? Who is it for?

The Virtual Branch solution is aimed at all the realities that are currently in difficulty in the relationship with their customers and need a fast and simple response to enable an effective communication from the digital point of view, opening a collaborative channel and not only communicative. For those who have fallen behind on this aspect, Virtual Branch represents an opportunity to make a quick digital leap forward, a necessary leap to ensure the continuation of business activities today. This emergency will change behavioral and consumption patterns in the long term, not only in the short term. Many critical issues will emerge, but also many opportunities. Those who have not yet developed digital channels will have to meet the demands of their customers who will increasingly want to be able to operate remotely and avoid physically visiting the company to use their services. Virtual Branch is the solution to this problem.

What is different from other video collaboration solutions?

Bandyer does not aim to create a product of UCC, unified communication and collaboration, of which the market is saturated. The partnership with Fabrick proves it. Virtual Branch aims to enable all its features, through its REST Api and SDK, within financial environments. We are today the most flexible and fastest solution to integrate. Virtual Branch was born as a response to this contingency period in which we realize that giving a simple solution without installation, unlike many players known on the market that very often require to install software and/or plug-ins for proper operation, completely web based not only from PC but also from smartphone. With our product just one click and you’re on call! Through Virtual Branch we want to show the importance of digital channels within the relationship with its customers, and at the same time highlight the technological goodness of our solutions, to then push the integration of our technology within the company’s apps and websites to engage their customers from the applications they already use daily.

Effort and timing of adoption by banks/customer companies and how can it evolve in the future (after the current emergency)?

The adoption times of this solution are extremely fast, less than 24h, and do not require the installation of any software component and/or plug-in for proper operation. We strongly believe in the adoption of these tools by financial realities because they ensure a lasting and effective relationship with their customers. This emergency will change behavioural and consumption patterns and the increasingly used digital channels will enable a series of remote “opportunities”. Integrating them within their own solutions can prevent the customer from perceiving a change of application and always remaining within the reference solution. It is said that history is a very good teacher but it has bad pupils, we hope that we can learn from this to evolve how we use our services.

Alberto Mussinatto, Strategy and Business Developer at Fabrick

What role did open banking play in the creation/launch of this solution? And what future scenarios does it open up to?

The collaboration with Bandyer, one of the first partners of Fabrick’s Open Platform ecosystem, was born from a common vision. We are both convinced that one of the bases for the development of open banking is the possibility, in addition to innovating current technological solutions, to build concrete use cases to enable new forms of relationship and interaction with their customers. Today the need to minimize physical interactions is combined with the need to ensure business continuity and also to strengthen the relationship with its customers. In this difficult situation it has emerged the possibility, by combining the respective visons and technological capabilities, to enable a new channel in which to channel to customers all the value of advice and relationship that is normally generated in a physical interaction in a branch. For this reason we decided to call the service “Virtual Branch“.

How does the launch of Virtual Branch fit into Fabrick’s business strategy?

In such a rapidly evolving context, we have first of all thought about how to respond quickly to our clients’ needs, and for this reason with Bandyer we have defined a very light technological set-up that allows you to be live with the Virtual Branch solution in 24 hours. This rapid response is part of a broader strategic framework in which our role as a platform is both supporting and enabling the evolution of the digital channels and tools of financial institutions serving private and corporate client segments that, especially at this stage, are proving to be very reactive to digital transformations. The Virtual Branch service therefore aims to be the test-bed for several use cases related to the digitization of physical networks. This will lead to the subsequent integration of the tool in white label by the institutions, with the aim of enabling a new way of providing the services of their corporate networks as well as their digital services while maintaining a high level of experience and a human relationship.

How has the COVID19 emergency affected Fabrick’s development of new services/products with its partners/producers?

The COVID19 emergency has certainly also had an impact on our development strategy/products and services, especially in relation to the multiple possibilities to respond to new needs with the different use cases available and under development with our partners. In fact we have witnessed a strong acceleration and awareness of demand especially towards some services, in some cases already available in others still under development.
We have adopted a two-step approach, a first mainly tactical phase in which we have quickly prepared enabling solutions with our partners, and the Virtual Branch is the first example, available very quickly. We are trying to ground further solutions at a different level of maturity in the areas of e-commerce, e-payments and in some specific cases specific support to institutions.
At this stage, in addition to putting the maximum effort into the development of rapidly deployable services, we are working closely with all ecosystem partners to build medium-term solutions that will support financial institutions and enterprises at the end of the COVID19 emergency. At this stage, we are developing some new specific services dedicated to financial institutions and enterprises in the credit, insurance and data analytics sectors to support the restart of the sectors that have been most affected by this emergency, such as tourism and physical retail.

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The fintech excellence of Europe at the hands of companies to facilitate open innovation projects across borders, for once, it is not the startups that are moving to go in search of corporate but the latter who are reaching the fintech best suited to their business going to get to know them. This is the European Fintech Discovery Program: an initiative Fintech District has promoted and carried out, succeeding in involving 9 other hubs that support startups and scaleups in the same sector but in other parts of the continent:

• Fintech Scotland
• Holland Fintech
• Copenhagen Fintech
• B-Hive (Belgium)
• The Lhoft (Luxembourg)
• Le Village (France)
• Portugal Fintech
• TechQuartier (Germany)
• Innsomnia (Spain)

The 10 hubs, all firmly convinced it is necessary to work together to grow fintech at a European level and make Europe a powerhouse, can thus offer their corporate members and other companies in the area, the opportunity to meet more than 1500 fintech and insurtech in Europe, selecting the type according to their needs in terms of open innovation.

Everyone will be able to present it with their own brand because this program is not owned by anyone, is based on collaboration between “colleagues” hub and aims to increase knowledge of the fintech scenario at a European level as well as bring the best practices of some countries to those that could benefit most. Working on a common initiative like this is also a first but important step towards the creation of the European single market.

Even though the program is aimed at corporate clients – its success depends on their interest – it also benefits startups that will see their matchmaking opportunities speed up and their time for market and business development reduced thanks to the possibility of introducing themselves to visiting foreign corporations while staying in their own country.

If you are interested in this opportunity, write to us at info@fintechdistrict.com to learn more

Innovation is once again a protagonist at Salone dei Pagamenti 2019 thanks to the rich program of content provided by Fintech District, which is, once again, a partner of the event this year. The event is a key one for our community, which is just two years has managed to bring together more than 120 startups including major corporations, fintech hubs, not only in Europe, and other major international stakeholders.

We believe that open innovation is the key to the evolution of the financial sector, and for this reason we have chosen to make this theme the protagonist of the path that we will take during the three days of November dedicated to innovation and payments through meetings, round tables and confrontations to explain/describe the current situation, the current Italian and international trends as well as future steps.

Collaborations between startups and corporations, the international scene and fintech ecosystems are the three themes that will be interconnected in our agenda designed to illustrate the many forms open innovation can take in the sector.

We will recount stories of companies that have innovated through collaboration with startups, showing the challenges and opportunities that a “big market” faces in this situation. Through the analysis of real cases, already present on the market, we will demonstrate it is possible to solve difficulties and obtain concrete advantages when collaboration is well managed, We also want to reflect together with participants on the role of accelerators in the development of fintech companies: how to create an effective one and develop successful solutions? There are international players who have succeeded and will reveal how.

The agenda of the “Fintech & Open Innovation” session of Salone dei Pagamenti 2019 will also include detailed information on regulation and the sandbox measure for fintech, to discuss its implications and possible international developments, opportunities, and possible risks. Special attention will be given to the experiences of Italian entrepreneurs and startups who have gone abroad and of companies which have come to Italy from outside the border, to understand the levers facilitating internationalization.

In these three days, fintech ecosystems will also be amongst the protagonists and we will analyze the role they play in the sector not only in Italy but all over Europe. Are they useful for startups wanting to expand abroad? And for those who want to meet investors? Could an “ecosystem of fintech ecosystems” really foster the evolution of this sector? On this occasion, we will also unveil a new international project that actually focuses on this.

We look forward to seeing you at Salone dei Pagamenti 2019. Here is the agenda and all the links to subscribe!

November 6th

• 2 pm Open Banking Open Platform with Alessio Castelli (CBI), Alberto Adorini (Fabrick), Donato Vadruccio (Plick)
• 2.30 pm Cooperation between banks and finance: challenges and opportunities with Alessandro Ninfole (Deposit Solutions)
• 3 pm Fintech Reverse Accelerators with Carlo Alberto Minasi (EY), Matteo Baido (UBI Banca), Nicoló Petrone (Medici)
• 3.30 pm How to attract innovation with accelerators with Vincenzo Fiore (Auriga), André Cipolla (Societe Generale)

November 7th

• 11.30 am Scenario evolution: the new entrants to the Italian market with Nicoló Pravettoni (Crowdestate), Niall Bellabarba (Enlivar), Filippo Maria Renga (Polimi), Mariano Spalletti (Qonto).
• 12.30 am Regulatory developments and sandboxes with Marta Ghiglioni (Italia Fintech)
• 3.30 pm Best in class innovator: Credimi with Ignazio Rocco di Torrepadula (Credimi)
• 4 pm Accelerators, Innovation hubs and city promotional agencies: how to work together to bring innovation opportunities? with Alessandro Longoni (Fintech District), Sophie Tobin (London & Partners), Joost Bergen (Startupbootcamp)
• 4.30 pm The new challenges of banking? with Luca Ferrarese (Banca Sella), Matteo Concas (Penta)
• 5 pm Abi Lab – Pure Digital Bank with Romano Stasi (ABI Lab)

November 8th

• 11.30 am Auriga Fintech Award

Open innovation: what is it exactly? It is an approach to innovation according to which companies are also based on ideas, resources and technological skills coming from the outside, in particular from startups, universities, research institutions, suppliers and consultants. But what about in practice?

Let’s find out what open innovation really means, looking at this process from the point of view of startups, often involved by the Corporate itself to bring new ideas, technologies, services. During the Data Driven Competition organized with Cerved, we got to know about the experience of Cardo and SpazioDati. The first is the story of a collaboration that has just begun, while the second one has lasted now for over 5 years.

Let’s start with Cardo, a technological suite allowing institutional investors to have access to all available opportunities for investment in alternative finance, at present with a particular focus on invoice trading. We talked about open innovation with CEO Altin Kadareja.

Altin, how did you start collaborating with Cerved?

The collaboration started thanks to the participation and victory of the “Data Driven Competition” contest. During the 3 months of development, we used the API made available to us by the creation of the first model of machine learning able to predict the number of days of late payment of every single bill visible on the marketplace.

Have you had difficulty working with a corporate in terms of open innovation?

We have not had any particular difficulties. Cerved proved itself very attentive to innovation. Every week, during the Data Driven Competition we made alignment calls with a team exclusively dedicated to us for solving any problems and doubts regarding the use of their API. We are very satisfied with the service that has been offered to us.

What advantages is it giving you and will it give you an open innovation experience?

Having access to the Cerved databases has certainly been a huge advantage. This information, appropriately re-elaborated and integrated into our systems, is used to develop our credit scoring models and test our portfolio optimization algorithms.

What are your goals for this collaboration with Cerved?

We have created the first statistical model providing a delay in the number of payment days for invoices. In the future, we want to expand the offer by inserting other algorithms which at present are being developed such as those dealing with the risk of fraud. We aim to include other asset classes within the Cardo (P2P Lending and real estate crowdfunding) and then we will use the data provided by Cerved to create specific risk models for this type of product. We would also like to integrate the two Cardo and Cerved platforms to offer maximum transparency and maximum data granularity to our investor.

Now, let’s find out how the collaboration between Cerved and SpazioDati proceeds. SpazioDati is a startup that operates in the big data and semantic field. We talked about open innovation with CEO Michele Barbera.

How did your collaboration with Cerved start and what does it consist in?

It started in 2013 when SpazioDati was just over a year old. Cerved was one of our first corporate clients in Italy. At that time we were mainly dealing with natural language analysis and generalist semantic engines, we were not yet specialized in the company world and business information. At first, Cerved commissioned us a Proof of Concept and then a real product that is still used today to improve its internal processes. The relationship became more structured and Cerved invested in the capital of SpazioDati.

What were the greatest difficulties of “adaptation” in working with a corporate? How have you faced and overcome them?

Initially, SpazioDati was for Cerved only a provider of technology for Cerved and know-how in the Big Data and artificial intelligence sectors, subsequently, the relationship evolved and the Cerved sales network began to distribute our products. The impact with a wide and articulated B2B sales networks like that of Cerved and the ways in which it interacts with customers required a rapid and radical adaptation of the processes of SpazioDati as we were a startup used to working almost exclusively online. It was a period of strong growth of for the team as well as continuous changes of the organization to be able to respond to the needs of Cerved and its many customers. At the same time, we have tried to preserve the nature of SpazioDati, our creative capacity and innovation. We managed to grow without losing the startup spirit.

What advantages is this experience bringing you?

The B2B sector is very complicated for a startup. If you sell complex products that generate significant changes in the customer’s internal processes, the sales phases are very long and elaborate. It is difficult for a startup to face them alone. The partnership with Cerved has allowed us to overcome many barriers and has greatly accelerated our growth. Cerved’s first investment in SpazioDati has brought not only capital for growth and commercial relationships with its customers, but also an enormous amount of valuable data regarding the entire Italian business ecosystem. It would have been impossible to find them elsewhere.

3 practical tips for a startup (fintech) that wants to collaborate with a corporate…

1. Identify the “champions”: people within the Corporate who know the mechanisms and who can help the startup move within the complex gears of a large company. Each phase of the relationship needs its champions belonging to different divisions and having different skills and roles in the company.
2. Have strength, obstinacy and flexibility. The first two to keep its vision even when you are in front of seemingly insurmountable walls, the third to know how to adapt to the needs of the large company.
3. Know how to involve the whole team in embracing change, without ever losing your enthusiasm.

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If you want to learn more about the activity of CARDO read here!

Cardo was selected last week as the winner of The Data Driven Competition, the first challenge launched by Fintech District and Cerved to identify new companies able to develop innovative products and services in the Fintech sector. The data and economic-financial information of Cerved on over 6 million Italian companies provided through API form the basis of the competition.

Cardo is a tech company offering institutional investors the opportunity to explore, analyze and create investment portfolios in the European markets of Invoice Trading, P2P Lending, and Real Estate Crowdfunding. Using the databases provided by Cerved, Atoka and Fintech platforms present in their machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms, they are able to offer investors a technological platform to support investments in Alternative Finance. Cardo’s team has received a 10K euro prize and has the opportunity to collaborate with Cerved in launching their project on the market.

Together with that of Cardo, four other projects also made it to the finals, after being selected from over 45 proposals received for the call ranging from software developers, IT experts to Fintech startups and companies involved in digital transformation, interested in launching innovative and ambitious projects starting from Big Data.

The members of the selection board – Valerio Momoni (Cerved), Alessandro Geraldi (Cerved), Corrado Chiodi (Cerved), Gabriele Antonelli (SpazioDati), Filippo De Vita (Vodafone) and Alberto Adorini (Fabrick) – evaluated the projects according to three main criteria: valorization of the Cerved data assets, innovation of the Use Case and marketability of the Use Case.

The Data Driven Competition format, according to Valerio Momoni, Cerved’s Director of Marketing and Business Development, “encourages open innovation and the Corporate Venture Capital, which is growing at a rate of 20% per year and confirms its strong driving force for innovation. Today, mature companies innovate by collaborating with startups, they put their ideas and flexibility to good use and ensure their access to the markets “.

According to Alessandro Longoni, head of FD, the number of candidate projects is “the demonstration that many young Italian fintech companies are ready and want to collaborate with incumbents”. Satisfied with the success of the Data Driven Competition, Longoni hopes “to see the products born from this initiative created in partnership with Cerved arrive soon on the market”.

In addition to Cardo, Moneymour, Ecomate, Studiomapp and Two Hundred also made it to the finals.

Two Hundred Crowd, a company led by a group of experts in crowdfunding, finance, and marketing at the service of innovation, has created FAST (FundAbility Scoring Tool). This tool analyzes the ability of a company to attract investments from private companies by collecting and processing public or private data, such as the age of the company, competition, the experience and provenance of the work team and its online presence

StudioMapp, an innovative startup based in Ravenna specialized in ICT and artificial intelligence, has proposed a location intelligence service that provides an index of the quality of life of a neighborhood and displays all official information on a map. This tool is called Qirate and should help buyers find the best area in which to buy a house and sellers the best way in which to conclude the transaction faster.

The Moneymour project uses the data CERVED and Atoka (data of companies in the area of residence, real estate valuation, economic fabric, etc …) to increase the accuracy of credit scoring algorithms on individuals. Moneymour’s algorithms use machine learning techniques to measure the performance of companies.

The algorithm developed by Ecomate, a startup that helps European companies to grow using innovative digital tools, calculates the sustainability rating of companies, taking advantage of the contribution of experts and operators in the sector and the most advanced machine learning techniques. Ecomate uses the Cerved API to keep the rating updated in real time.

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