Banca Generali and Saxo Bank partner for digital trading
New joint venture for Italian trading market
Italy’s Banca Generali and Denmark’s Saxo Bank are establishing an exclusive eight-year partnership to offer online trading and digital services for the Italian market.
Saxo Bank’s board approved the venture last year, but Banca Generali took more time, with the board approval having been recently granted.
The objective is to offer clients access to a platform for trading, based on Saxo’s technology and managed by a newly established joint venture, BG SAXO Sim, owned by Banca Generali and Saxo. (SIM is an Italian acronym for società di intermediazione di borsa – i.e. stock brokerage company.)
BG SAXO Sim will be a standalone entity with a board of seven directors. It will also have a steering committee, comprised of the two banks’ CEOs, CFOs and COOs.
The new platform will “enhance” the offering available to Banca Generali financial advisors, allowing access to “tailor-made operations” for hedging that can be offered to private and corporate clients.
It will be based on Saxo Bank’s technology, which will be implemented within Banca Generali’s home banking platform. It will start operating in H2 this year, upon receiving regulatory approval.
Banca Generali manages €52.1 billion (at 30 June 2017) for more than 250,000 customers. It was founded in 2000, and is a subsidiary of Assicurazioni Generali, the largest insurance company in Italy.
Saxo was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in Copenhagen. It employs more than 1,500 people in financial centres around the world including London, Singapore, Paris, Zurich, Dubai and Tokyo.
Back in May 2017, Saxo released its new developer portal as it looks to strengthen its involvement in open banking. The portal provides technical documentation, reference guides, sample code and interactive tools. With the release, Saxo has made its trading infrastructure available to third-party developers, fintechs, vendors and partners, enabling them to connect to its trading engine.
