Banca Generali has announced the launch of a new corporate and commercial partnership with Conio Inc, a fintech company operating in the cryptocurrency industry. The wallet provider Conio offers custody, negotiation and reporting services currently focusing on Bitcoins.
Under this partnership agreement, Banca Generali will acquire a stake in Conio Inc. to support the company’s growth and the distribution of its products as part of the Bank’s range of digital services offered to its customers.
Banca Generali has acted as main investor in Conio’s share capital increase for a total amount of $14 million. The cryptocurrency industry has reached a significant size and is constantly growing. At the end of November, the overall capitalisation of cryptocurrencies reached $580 billion, with bitcoins accounting for about two-thirds of the total. Daily trades at the global level amounted to $280 billion, with approximately 60 million users trading cryptocurrencies using wallets.
Among wallet providers, Conio Inc. has exclusive technology and patents designed to ensure secure custody and reduce counterparty risk. These include a digital currency custody system with multiple signatures (with three security keys), which may be extended to any digital currency in the future.
Gian Maria Mossa, Chief Executive Officer and General Manager, said: “This is an important industrial partnership in light of both the value of the available technology and the managers’ quality. We know that the future structure of financial markets can certainly be influenced and conditioned by blockchain technology, which continues to make headway, above all in cryptocurrencies, but also in many other areas. Some central banks have already begun studies and projects to introduce digital currencies alongside traditional systems; global payment systems players are including this new world in their business models, and in Switzerland we are seeing the creation of the first banks based on blockchain systems.
“In this context, the agreement with Conio means an expansion of the services offered to our customers and collaborating with an innovation-oriented partner. We can thus continue to develop our open platform leveraging the best innovations arising from international best-practices. I would also like to highlight the great attention that Conio pays to security and regulatory aspects, which have been key to the creation of this partnership.”
Conio Inc. was founded in 2015 in San Francisco (USA) by Christian Miccoli and Vincenzo di Nicola, who act as co-CEOs of the company. Conio Inc. currently serves over 150,000 cryptocurrency portfolios for Italian customers.
“This agreement with Banca Generali is a significant step towards a new era for the whole financial system,” said Christian Miccoli, co-CEO of Conio Inc. “After ten years of development and industrial stabilisation, cryptocurrencies are now entering into a tangible new phase, debuting on the financial institutions’ range of services. With this transaction, Banca Generali is positioning Italy as a leading country in Europe in the race towards the development of these new technologies.”
