Insights

In 2020, TAS introduced a new service to allow out-of-the-box connectivity to all the major US signature networks, such as Mastercard and VISA, and to the major Debit Networks such as Star, NYCE and Pulse. This delivers real benefits and convenience to both Issuers and Acquirers who are able to easily, quickly and securely accept a wide range of traditional and innovative payments, with TAS acting as an aggregator of network traffic towards Mastercard Network Gateway Services (MNGS).

Mastercard has renamed the service to Mastercard Networks Exchange (NEX), an intelligent routing platform that provides one connection to global and regional payment rails, reducing the cost and complications of managing individual connections. This unified approach from a trusted connectivity partner can help overcome fragmented network access and create unrivaled economies of scale.  

We offer NEX in a flexible SaaS mode deployed on the Cloud for simple onboarding as a stand-alone service, seamlessly interfacing with your platforms and applications. The solution has proven to be successfully scalable and able to manage a growing volume of network traffic.

More updates also in the issuing area where we started delivering our 3D Secure component to the US market. This optimizes our customers' buying experience while increasing sales and reducing fraud. The 3D Secure component permits the application of the EMVco standard and allows the creation of customized authentication experiences for cardholders during transactions. Today, as a result of requests from our customers, we have expanded the set of supported transactions and provide our clients with a full EMVCO-compliant chip and PIN.

Regarding the acquiring area we are onboarding a new client, a US based Fintech company focused on streamlining payments and data for the Insurance Industry by providing cost-effective payment solutions and tools to drive insurance carrier adoption and customer conversion. They will manage through the NEX Gateway Credit and Debit transactions, Card Present and e-commerce.   

The audit held on 20 March for the maintenance of the HDS certification (hébergeur de données de santé) for TAS France gave a positive outcome.

This is a very important certification, imposed by French legislation, in order to be able to process, and even simply host, health data on its servers.

Go to the certifications page

Milan, March 13^TH, 2023 - TAS SpA (hereinafter "TAS"), a leading company in the supply of software and services for banking and financial applications, in Europe and the Americas, announces the entry of Cristiano Viganò as Group Chief Financial Officer.

Cristiano brings to TAS his many years of experience as CFO in various areas of the ICT world, in particular in digital payments.

Cristiano has worked in prestigious software houses, from Accenture to Clessidra Sgr, up to Ingenico where, for 13 years, he held various roles both in Italy and abroad. In recent years he has been Group CFO of an important system integration company and, recently, of Olivetti.

The skills gained in structured multinational contexts, in particular in the management of M&A operations with related integrations, make him the right person to make a fundamental contribution to the execution of TAS' growth strategy by strengthening its processes and financial governance.

Valentino Bravi, CEO of TAS, said: “With great pleasure we welcome Cristiano to TAS who, with his skills and solid experience, will certainly be an important part of our team to implement the development plans we have in mind for the group shortly.”

Cristiano Viganò added, “I am honored to join an established company in the payments market such as TAS and also enthusiastic to be able to contribute to the execution of the ambitious strategic plan supported by Rivean Capital and led by an Executive team of recognized expertise.”

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TAS Lab is our new research department which aims to continuously invest in innovation in the financial sector. The purpose of TAS Lab is to design technologically advanced solutions that improve how people use financial services, developing state-of-the-art products to provide banks and companies with a competitive advantage in the market.

The department currently focuses on three main research areas: quantum computing for payment fraud prevention, the development of a new phygital model of bank branches (TAS Remote Teller) and the applications of artificial intelligence to the world of payments.

Quantum computing is an emerging technology that promises to revolutionize the way data and financial transactions are handled. TAS Lab, together with the University of Verona (Italy), is exploiting this technology on concrete use cases to develop advanced solutions for the prevention of payment fraud, which allow banks and financial institutions to manage payment transactions more securely and efficiently.

The phygital bank branch, or TAS Remote Teller, represents a new frontier in the banking sector, which combines the advantages of physical presence with the convenience of digital technology. TAS Lab is exploring how this technology can be used to improve the customer banking experience, guaranteeing the physical presence of streamlined branches on the territory with virtual assistance that allows the user to carry out all the banking operations of a traditional branch in a simple and fast way.

Finally, TAS Lab is investing in artificial intelligence, developing advanced algorithms and machine learning technologies to improve data management and financial transactions.

If you are a research institution, a company or an individual with a passion for technology and innovation and are interested in collaborating with TAS Lab, please get in touch with us to submit your idea. The department is always looking for new projects and solutions.

Contact us at solutions@tasgroup.eu to find out how we can create the future of financial services together.

To write this article we used the artificial intelligence of Chat GPT, starting from our ideas💡.

27-30 March 2023 | Wynn Las Vegas Resort

Las Vegas is set to host one of the most anticipated events in the credit union industry. The 2023 NACUSO Network Conference will offer an exciting lineup of Keynote Speakers to challenge, inspire and encourage you with their insights. Additional topics will cover regulatory issues, cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, state of the industry and CUSO hot topics.

We are thrilled to be part of this eventful moment as we showcase our latest products and services, as well as meeting with credit union leaders from across the country.

We invite you to stop by our booth to discover our advanced digital payments issuing platform that enables you to build business functionalities and deliver rich digital user experiences, across any channel, quickly and with minimum effort.

Contact us to learn more about our company and how we can help your credit union thrive.

We look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas!

As part of the fintech market expansion over the last years, fintechs came up with new offerings to attract new segments in the market. Embedded finance enriches a non-financial consumer experience with a financial product. Financial products were traditionally offered by financial institutions but now they become part of a digital customer experience. It is integrated with one single platform to reduce barriers and simplify the life of users.

A company that provides non-financial services, such as an online shopping site, can offer a spot-on solution to accelerate the purchases of customers and improve the overall customer experience. Currently, retailers and gig economy companies are leading the way to embedded finance, however fitness clubs, gaming, non-profits and healthcare are expanding the use cases.

As reported in the recent study of Bain & Company in the US, transactions through embedded financial services amounted to $2.6 trillion in 2021 and will reach $7 trillion by 2026. Those numbers are an indicator of how customers are shifting their interactions with their finances, along with their customer experience.

Types of embedded finance

Most of the development in embedded finance takes place in products like deposits, payments, issuing, lending and insurance. These offerings form an easy integration with a consumer experience, it is straight forwarded to develop new use cases and it enables different opportunities for money movement.

Embedded banking

With embedded banking, also called Banking-as-a-Service, non-financial companies offer their users a virtual or IBAN account to hold funds and make payments. Embedded banking typically makes the most sense for sellers or service providers using a company's platform to conduct business. It is often also the basis to offer additional embedded finance products like payments, cards and lending.

For example, an acquirer can provide merchant settlements on their own IBAN accounts that can be used by the merchant to pay for supplies.

Embedded Payments

Taking out a debit or credit card, entering the PIN or tapping the card is a friction point that can cause consumers to abandon a digital purchase should their card not be handy. It is a total frictionless process in embedded payments as no plastic card is required.

The best example is the Uber taxi paying experience where the app stores the card data and payments are frictionlessly done when ordering a taxi.

Embedded payments are not only restricted to cards, but they can also give consumers the possibility to pay directly from their bank accounts.

An interesting global survey conducted by IDC revealed that within 2030, 74% of digital consumer payments will be made with platforms offered by non-financial institutions.

Embedded Card Issuing

Branded debit and credit cards exist for quite some time. As part of embedded finance, the use cases for using cards outside traditional retail payments are unlimited. For example, in the B2B space today expense management applications are able to issue one-time virtual T&E cards and are able to perform better spending controls in order to avoid that staff members use plastic corporate cards for private use.

Embedded Lending

In the past lending money for large purchases was done via credit cards or a traditional loan with a financial institution. The rise of new players and specialists in the fintech industry has led to significant growth in the lending area. Over the past few years, several BNPL platforms such as Klarna and Afterpay proliferated and gave consumers new opportunities to access funds easily when purchasing goods and services. The report concluded by Bain & Company estimated that by 2026, the market size brought by BNPL platforms will reach $265 billion. Their research showed also how customers are inclined to spend slightly more when using BNPL platforms, increasing conversion rates and revenues. Thanks to new accessible and frictionless technologies, embedded finance in lending is now becoming a significant part of the way consumers and businesses access funding.

Embedded Insurance

The continuous increase of data collected in all fields is not sparing the insurance market which collects information to be used for tailor-made and competitive policies. Embedded insurance programs differ from traditional insurance because they eliminate the insurance agent or broker for example when purchasing a new car or when using traditional payment methods. These new digital platforms enable traditional insurance companies to manage time-consuming and laborious activities such as claim registrations by offering a better customer experience, and technological platforms. We are also seeing new players outside of insurance using embedded finance to deepen customer relationships and drive loyalty. A great example is offered by Tesla, which offers competitive insurance policies when purchasing a new car, instead of being a separate part of the process.

How should an embedded finance platform look

Embedded finance platforms improve customer experience, journey and design to non-financial platforms. This is made possible thanks to an ecosystem made of partnerships between banks, technology providers, and distributors of financial products. Customers and businesses that use these modern interfaces can easily integrate their software thanks to open APIs and benefit from high levels of flexibility and configurability. Plus, a platform's embedded finance offering comes also with scalable and reliable micro-services, flexible workflow configurations and a centralized customized dashboard that permits companies higher dynamicity and a shorter time to market.

TAS Global Payment Platform (GPP): how should an embedded finance platform look

Hundreds of financial institutions choose the TAS Global Payment Platform (GPP) to provide a better payment experience and enable faster time to market. The GPP platform is suited to any ecosystem operator between banks, technology providers, and distributors of financial products to guarantee a great and seamless customer experience. We work with businesses in digital banking, BNPL, insurance, travel and payments thanks to a highly configurable platform with open APIs.

Our embedded finance offering comes with scalable and reliable micro-services, flexible workflow configurations and a centralized custom overview that permits companies higher dynamicity.

We were very pleased to welcome Cascade’s CEO Spencer Schmerling and VP of Compliance Sarah Zeal to our Italian offices in Bologna, Rome and Milan.

As a US-based Banking-as-a-Service provider, Cascade provides Mobile Banking Services, Card Issuance, and Enrolment for card programs as well as a web-based banking portal, mobile app, and contactless payment capabilities.

Cascade was TAS's first US customer, and has launched a number of card programs with Mastercard and Visa using TAS's Card Issuing and Processing software. The project, which involved the integration into the American interbank clearing house (ACH), was completed in Q4 2020, and the first card programs launched in Q1-Q2 2021.

At the end of November, Spencer and Sarah came to visit TAS to get an update on the company and its offering and learn of the product and service roadmap.

“We are very happy with this visit and very impressed with the members of the senior leadership team who we met. We are very confident with TAS's deep knowledge of the payments sector and its ability to provide innovative solutions to the market”, Cascade's CEO Spencer Schmerling said.

“We appreciate the trust Cascade put in TAS and in our ability to create and deliver solutions and services around the world”, TAS CEO Valentino Bravi added.

“We enthusiastically welcomed Spencer and Sarah to Italy. We have built a strong partnership with Cascade that we are sure will lead to new interesting projects in the future” Peter Caiazzi, SVP Product Development, TAS International commented.  

Milan - November 14, 2022 - TAS S.p.A., a leading company in Italy in the supply of software and services for banking and financial applications, and the head of a group of companies of the same name (the "TAS Group") also present in Europe and America, today announces the acquisition by its subsidiary Global Payments S.p.A. of the entire share capital of Nemos Srl (hereinafter "Nemos"), a company that provides software solutions and consulting services for the e-money sector.

Nemos is a point of reference in the Italian panorama for the development of "on demand" solutions, born with the mission of facilitating the management of payment instruments by favoring ease of use, flexibility, high degree of customization, connectivity and containment of final costs.

For TAS, this is the third acquisition since July 2021, after ASTRO IT and Krisopea.

Fabio Bravi, Head of M&A, Special Projects and Corporate Developments of TAS comments: “One of the main pillars on which we want to base our growth is certainly e-money and this acquisition goes in that direction. Nemos is a player recognized by the market and we share our mission and values with them. Also, at the heart of TAS action is the desire to offer our customers increasingly customizable, flexible and technologically advanced solutions. For this reason, we were immediately in tune with Nemos and we are sure that this acquisition will enhance our ability to create customer-tailored services ".

“TAS is a reality that we know well and that qualifies as one of the main players in the payments sector in Italy, and beyond. We are convinced that this acquisition will allow us to further develop our skills on a larger scale by joining a group that is investing in innovation and growth both nationally and internationally ", say Claudio Vecchia and Gianluca Sisti, Directors of Nemos.

TAS was assisted in the transaction by KPMG as financial advisor and by Lexia Avvocati for the legal aspects, while Nemos was assisted by the financial advisor Andrea Lavorenti and the legal advisor Andrea Zoppolato, partner of Buonocore Galletti Zoppolato Avvocati.

At Sibos 2022, we sat down with Mario Mendia, the Senior Vice President of International Markets at TAS Group, to discuss the emergence of payments-as-a-service and its potential in making banking more accessible to all possible demographics.

Looking at the trends at this year’s Sibos, Mendia is most excited about the digital developments in cross-border payments and CBDC, and the growing presence of cloud technology in major financial institutions.