UniCredit to acquire Vodeno and Aion Bank in €370m deal

By Gloria Methri

UniCredit has signed a €370 million agreement to acquire the entire share capital of Vodeno and Aion Bank. The companies combine an innovative, scalable, and flexible cloud-based platform with banking services based on Aion’s ECB licence to enable end-to-end Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) for both financial and non-financial companies across Europe.

The transaction represents one of the first moves by a bank to attain full ownership of a new technology without any dependencies from third-party core banking providers.

Aion/Vodeno can embed financial solutions, including accounts, deposits, lending and payment propositions, directly into the customer journeys of retailers, e-commerce marketplaces, FinTechs, financial technology providers and banks.

The Vodeno Cloud Platform is a cloud-native core banking system built with smart contracts technology and API-based, integrated with the processes and procedures of a fully-fledged bank.

The acquisition will allow UniCredit to:

• Own a next-generation core banking technology with a cloud-based, fully operational and scalable digital banking platform and a comprehensive range of products for high-value segments.
• Further enhance our in-house technological expertise, leveraging a separate team of expert technologists and developers, enhancing our capability to innovate and adapt swiftly to market changes.
• Obtain a separate innovation and testing hub to innovate, develop, and test new solutions and functionalities.
• Pursue new targeted client segments and market expansion through a flexible platform, enabling a more viable and profitable entrance into new European markets by leveraging a primarily digital bank model that minimises costs, accelerating time-to-market and integration of new solutions.
• Improve embedded finance offering, bolstering UniCredit’s embedded finance proposition, delivering new services to marketplaces, e-commerce, and retailers, as well as providing BaaS for select FinTechs.
• Enhance the proposition for individuals and SMEs, fostering UniCredit’s competitive edge in the digital banking landscape for SMEs and individuals.

Andrea Orcel, Chief Executive Officer of UniCredit, said, “This investment enables us to leverage Vodeno’s technology and talent to develop their proprietary technology further, using it as a sandbox to develop, test and innovate for the benefit of our broader group. The combination of Aion with the integrated technology provides the route to enter targeted client segments and entire markets across Europe, providing additional opportunities to deploy our excess capital attractively.”