The largest Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo entered the capital of the startup Oval Money

Bank Intesa Sanpaolo entered the capital of the start-up Oval Money, acquiring a minority quota through its venture capital fund. The operation was performed through operation unit of Neva Finventures, which deals with the investment of venture capital. The start-up of Oval Money in the fintech sphere is one of the most promising concerning savings management, with headquarters in Turin, and with investors in London.

The enterprise is developing an application for savings management, identifying excessive spending and adjusting the expenditure of funds. In other words, for sophisticated users on the smartphone will be installed a compass to indicate areas of investment using the strategies of funds Eurizon Capital.

Oval Money is headed by Benedetta Arese Lucini, former general manager of Uber Italia, who has recently focused on artificial intelligence. Oval Money is also called a "digital piggy bank", which allows you to link the application to your current account for real-time monitoring of payments on your credit card, withdrawal from your account and cash on your account.

The technology is based on the recent EU Directive PSD2, which opened the way for open banking, that is, the obligation of credit and financial institutions to make their data available to third-party operators, on the client’s request..

This genuinely revolutionary situation has given impetus to numerous start-ups developing innovative solutions in the field of savings management, far ahead of traditional banks.

According to Stefano Barrese, the head of the Intesa Sanpaolo territorial network branch office, "Oval Money represents an important opportunity for the bank to innovate in customer service constantly."

Oval Money is of interest primarily due to the infrastructure of the Banca 5 bank, which became the owner of 20 thousand tobacco shops by acquiring in December last year 100% of Banca ITB, online credit and financial institution serving the retail trade in tobacco products. By the number of branches in the field, Banca 5 can be compared with the Post of Italy (Poste Italiane).

That is why Benedetta Arese Lucini proposed Banca 5 to seek an agreement with Intesa Sanpaolo Bank "for the integration of online and offline channels", which is necessary for the development of Oval Money to attract private customers.