Banca Generali aims at the cryptocurrency market and announces the entry into the capital of the Italian-American fintech Conio (founded in the US by two Italians), which positions itself as a "wallet provider", i.e. offering custody, trading and reporting services, currently focused on Bitcoin. The operation is financial but will also give life to an operational partnership, to grow the company by distributing its products within the digital offer of the Leone bank.
Banca Generali also has participated as main investor in a capital increase operation di Conio, approved for a total of 14 million dollars. The crypto-currency sector, explains a note, is increasingly attractive: in recent months it has reached an important dimension with a continuously growing trend. At the end of November, for example, the total capitalization of "crypto" currencies reached 580 billion dollars, of which Bitcoin constitutes about two-thirds of the total. There are 280 billion daily trades worldwide, with around 60 million users trading crypto-currencies with “wallets”.
In this context of turmoil, Conio boasts among the various providers a technology and exclusive patents aimed at guaranteeing safe custody and the reduction of counterparty risk. These include a multi-signature digital currency custody system (on 3 security keys), which can be extended to any digital currency in the future. Conio was founded in 2015 in San Francisco by Christian Miccoli (with experience in CheBanca!, ING Direct, and McKinsey) and Vincenzo Di Nicola (with experience in Microsoft and Stanford University, and founder of GoPago, a technology acquired by Amazon), who hold the role of coCEO of Conio Inc and today it serves over 150.000 cryptocurrency wallets for Italian customers.
“The operation with Conio – he commented with FIRSTonline the managing director of Banca Generali, Gian Maria Mossa – has a threefold nature. From a financial point of view, we strongly believe in the value of Conio and in its ability to grow in this market segment establishing itself as a reference player, so as to reaffirm our country's ability to compete even in the great challenge of fintech. From the point of view of the commercial offer, however, this operation will allow us to make available to our customers the possibility of operating on cryptocurrencies - and in particular on Bitcoin - through an operator who works in full compliance with Italian legislation and regulations. Finally, there is an aspect related to synergy in terms of technology. It is clear to everyone by now that the savings industry will increasingly move towards a massive use of digital and in which the blockchain will play an increasingly important role: we want to work with Conio to exploit their skills and bring them into our private hub ”.
