Banca Generali, the banking hub of the largest Generali Group, is conducting a $ 14 million loan to invest in Conio, a popular cryptocurrency provider in Italy.
Banca Generali ready to welcome Bitcoin
The company explained in an official announcement that a commercial distribution agreement has been signed to begin offering Conio's services to Banca Generali's customers in 2021. There were some smaller investors in the Series B round but the names are not. been made public.
Banca Generali amply covered the majority of the investment, a Conio representative said, refusing to disclose the exact figure. Prior to this fundraising, Conio had accumulated $ 3 million in seed investments at the end of 2015 led by Poste Italiane (Poste shares - ticker: PST), and then a $ 3,5 million round in mid-2018 by various investors including Banca Sella.
For now, the bank's custody solution will only include bitcoin, said Michele Seghizzi, head of marketing and external relations at Banca Generali, adding that in terms of available wealth, the bank's customers range from approximately $ 500.000 to $ 10 million.
"Right now there is only bitcoin," Seghizzi said in an interview. “We have decided to focus on the major digital currency that makes up the bulk of the market and get all values right. The Conio team is open to extending the service to other digital currencies in the future ”.
The crypto sector in Italy
Earlier this year, Conio provided a wallet integration with competing Italian bank Hype, which enabled approximately 1,2 million mobile banking customers to buy, sell and store bitcoins from their banking app rather as Revolut does in the UK.
"What we are doing with Banca Generali is similar to Hype", said Christian Miccoli, co-founder of Conio, "but on a much larger scale". The multisig solution requires that a private key is issued for each Banca Generali customer which is stored on the customer's smartphone, while the second and third keys are held by the bank and Conio respectively. That way, if the customer loses the key, the funds can still be recovered, Miccoli said.
MassMutual, a large US insurance group that recently bought $ 100 million in bitcoin, has created some movement among insurance companies in Europe that are starting to look into cryptocurrency investments as well.
Perhaps Banca Generali's parent company, the Generali Group, which controls approximately $ 625 billion in assets, might be considering doing something similar? “You should ask him,” Seghizzi said.
