The activity of Excellence Payments has begun, the new company of the Gruppo Excellence which acts as a reference partner in the world of payment consultancy for banks, payment institutions, corporate companies and other players in the sector. Objective: to facilitate the development and implementation of concrete and innovative solutions, allowing customers to adapt to changing market needs, keeping up with the times, and achieve their goals in the competitive payments landscape. The collaborative and customer-oriented approach, based on years of experience of the company’s consultants in the sector, ensures that each solution is tailor-made.
In this way the Gruppo Excellence, founded in 2007 by Maurizio Primanni, current CEO and Renato Ferri Pacini, with headquarters in Italy (Milan and Rome), Switzerland and China, active since the beginning in the banking, insurance and asset management sectors, expands its offering which has gradually grown by giving life to start-ups such as Excellence Education (training and change management) and Excellence Innovation (development of digital platforms) or by acquiring high potential companies from the market such as Dataskills (data science and analytics) and Red Public (sustainability strategies and Digital Project Management).
CEO of Excellence Payments is Andrea Gnetti. Among the leading payments experts in Italy, he has over 20 years of experience in the payments sector as a consultant, with experience at Ernst & Young and McKinsey. As Manager he directed the e-money management of Capitalia and then of Unicredit in Italy. He has been part of important boards in the world of payments, including Bancomat for more than five years and VISA Italia. In his career he has supported many financial institutions in the development of their payments business, helping them to innovate their offer, distribution model, processes and IT platforms. Relevant payment products, among the leaders in the Italian card market, were designed with his contribution.
“This new company – states Andrea Gnetti, CEO of Excellence Payments – will operate in synergy with the other companies of the Group by integrating their services into its offer in order to serve customers along the entire value chain. For example, the synergy with the companies of the Excellence Group, experts in the development of information systems, Excellence Innovation, data analysis, Data Skills, and project management, Red Public, will allow us to satisfy all their requirements in this area. During this adventure, he will have the privilege of being able to count on the support of Carlo Liotti, a highly experienced figure in the sector, with over 30 years of history behind him. His expertise and network of contacts represent a fundamental value for the development and growth of Excellence Payments.”
“Excellence Payments – declares Maurizio Primanni, CEO of the Gruppo Excellence – takes place in a context of great transformation of the world of e-money in Italy, which is progressively changing its prospects and business potential. The growth of electronic money is fast and highly disruptive to many business models. 2022 showed growth of around 45% compared to 2019, before the pandemic, with a volume of around €390 billion, causing cash to fall below the absolute majority, a trend that does not seem to be stopping. This is thanks to the ease of use, enhanced by contactless, which is the payment method at the point of sale preferred by Italians and strongly supported by international circuits, such as Mastercard, to the now widespread diffusion, in Italy there are over 110 million cards in circulation and over 3.5 million active POS terminals, and the cost-effectiveness of management, also strengthened in Italy by the push of Poste Italiane, leader in the issuing sector”.
“These elements – concludes Primanni – make this market increasingly interesting both for historic operators, starting with the banks, and for new entrants, who, thanks to the reduction in distribution costs resulting from the use of smartphones and the new context regulatory, are increasingly numerous and with increasingly interesting prospects. The attractiveness of the payments market is also demonstrated by the numerous M&A operations that have affected it in recent years, led mainly by Nexi and, in the last period, by FSI, with the entry into BCC Pay and Bancomat, as well as by the presence of two unicorns, Satispay and Scalapay, among the few in the Italian fintech market (sources: Polytechnic University of Milan and Bank of Italy).”
