Visa and Solarisbank partner with fintech FINOM to launch Italy’s first business banking accounts with integrated e-voicing
- Solarisbank to provide customers with Italian IBANs and Visa debit cards
- Business accounts offer cashback of up to 3%, the highest rate in Italy
- FINOM’s 15,000 customers in Italy are now eligible for the new business accounts
Accounts will help self-employed and sole traders to meet new regulatory requirements Milan, 10 May 2022: FINOM, a fintech company focused on empowering small firms, freelancers and entrepreneurs across Europe, has launched an innovative new business account in Italy, which combines banking, e-invoicing, and finance management services on a single platform.
European bank Solarisbank is facilitating the fintech firm’s product expansion in Italy, by offering local IBANs to customers, and they will issue the account’s Visa debit cards. Italy is FINOM’s third largest European market, behind France and Germany, where it has 15,000 customers. Through this partnership, the Amsterdam headquartered fintech will now be able to offer its all-in-one finance management, e-invoicing, and banking platform to both existing and new Italian customers. The new business accounts will also support Italy’s flat tax rate paying self-employed, sole traders and freelancers as they transition to e-invoicing, a legal requirement in the country from July 2022. FINOM, founded in 2019, raised €16.8 million in funding from leading global investors in 2020, including Target Global, General Catalyst, Avala Capital, Cognito Capital Partners, and Entree Capital.
“We are the only company in Italy to offer banking and e-invoicing services via a single platform,” said Antonio la Mura, head of FINOM in Italy.
“Today we are doubling our efforts in the country to better serve the needs of sole traders, entrepreneurs and freelancers who are the backbone of the national economy but remain poorly served by the traditional banks. “Our Italian customer base is growing fast, and we intend to launch banking services integrated with our platform’s other financial management tools, for all SMEs by the end of 2022. Finance management should not need to be a major pain point so it’s our mission to streamline payments, einvoicing, banking reconciliation, and expense categorisation to bring much greater efficiency to SMEs, sole traders and freelancers, which are a huge part of the Italian business and jobs ecosystem.”
“We see enormous potential in the digitisation of the Italian financial market, especially when it comes to innovation based on Open Banking and banking-as-a-Service. FINOM is using the breadth of Solarisbank’s banking-as-a-service platform to provide its customers with a cutting-edge digital offering, tailored to their specific needs. We are extremely proud that FINOM has chosen us for their international expansion to offer Italian IBANs” said Federico Roesler Franz, general manager of Solarisbank Italy.
“Italy is dominated by micro-businesses, with 4.5 million freelancers, accounting for 25% of the total workforce,” said Luca Moroni, head of Visa Business Solutions Southern Europe. “Micro-businesses play a vital role in the economic recovery of Europe and their ability to embrace and integrate digital technologies is critical. Visa has launched a series of initiatives to support the digitization of the 8 million businesses across Europe. Business cards are an easy and safe tool to digitise processes, simplifying reconciliation and VAT recovery.”