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CRIF keeps following its global fintech investment strategy even in challenging market conditions
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Acquired industries include banking, insurance or food
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InnovEcos, the CRIF Global Open Innovation Hub, to leverage synergies and partnerships
Over 20 months into its three-year-initiative to invest a total of 350 million Euros in fintechs by the end 2023, CRIF is proud with the progress made so far. Even in the challenging current market conditions, CRIF sees no reason to divert from its global investment strategy in order to accelerate its global positioning and aimed at providing the market with innovative solutions.
“The fintechs we look at are promising long-term growth, thanks to their solid business models and the possibility to integrate them into our innovation ecosystem. That gives us the confidence to stick with our strategy, even in the current investment climate”, Dr. Frank Schlein, CEO of CRIF Germany, describes the investment strategy driven by CRIF’s headquarters in Bologna, Italy. “As investor and innovation hub, we are able to leverage synergies and to support fintechs with our information and data expertise. This role suits us well, as it complements the strengths of the fintechs and emphasizes our own. More than 20 months after setting off on our targeted investment journey, we truly see a win-win for everybody involved.”
Cooperating with names that will change the industry – and the world
The financed companies come from a wide range of industries, including banking, insurance and food which show different levels of maturity. Their common factor is a digital business model that has the potential to disrupt or at least innovate the way to do business in their industry.
As the investments strategy is a global undertaking, invested companies come from all over the world. For example, Strands - a fintech company specialized in advanced digital banking solutions acquired by CRIF in 2020 - has a particularly strong presence in Spain, Latin America, and Asia. Strands develops AI-driven software solutions for banks and financial institutions. So far, over 700 digital banking implementations have been integrated via worldwide collaborations with the objective to increase customer engagement and generate new revenue through digital channels.
Another example is digital identification solutions provider Inventia, fully acquired by CRIF two years ago. As one of Europe’s leaders in digital onboarding, video recognition and customer engagement solutions, Inventia has many clients worldwide, including leading banks as well as telecommunication, utilities, automotive and insurance companies, while partnering with international players, including HP and Genesys.
Many invested companies also build on and extent CRIFs core business solutions. Italian digital credit scoring platform Fido, for example, uses new types of privacy-compliant data sourced from the digital footprint of consumers’ online activities. Making use of hundreds of nonfinancial signals Fido’s artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions increase acceptance rates, reduce defaults and bolster financial inclusion.
A clear vision to drive the future
CRIF is continuously screening the market for innovation potential which could significantly contribute to CRIF’s core business solutions. To enhance its ability to leverage synergies and partnerships, CRIF introduced InnovEcos, its Global Open Innovation Hub. It comprises of fintechhubs, market opinion leaders and multidisciplinary professionals with experience within the fintech industry. InnovEcos is further supported by the CRIF Global Ecosystem as a whole, as it allows CRIF and the invested fintechs to develop new business models to innovate services, products, and processes.
“With our current investment portfolio and InnovEcos in place, we see ourselves as an attractive partner for fintechs from all over the world”, commented Natalia Shchelovanova, Global Innovation and Ecosystem Lead InnovEcos, CRIF. “By expanding highly promising companies to our group’s ecosystem, we are on track to build a powerful hub to drive innovation and progress for digital business solutions across many industries.”
