Insights

Milan (Italy), 22 June 2021– Flywallet S.r.l. (“Flywallet”), the innovative startup that created a digital platform for enabling payments and services through wearable devices with biometric authentication, has signed a reserved investment agreement for the entry of Global Payment S.p.A. (“GP”), a subsidiary of TAS Group’s mother company TAS S.p.A., into the capital with a minority stake.

TAS Group is a multinational company, whose payment software solutions are adopted by commercial and central banks throughout Europe and beyond. More than 100 million payment cards are managed by TAS platforms worldwide. Thanks to its leadership, TAS Group will be a vehicle to accelerate the go-to-market for Flywallet’s mobile wallet, the world’s first for tokenizing payment cards on wearables with biometric authentication. The partnership will also result in a commercial agreement under which GP will distribute Flywallet’s wearables and service platform to TAS Group's business customers.

Flywallet’s flagship product is named Keyble, a new type of wearable that adapts to the user’s lifestyle, created with eco-friendly materials and inspired by made-in-Italy styles. It consists of a smart device that can be inserted into fashion accessories such as bracelets or watch straps and is equipped with biometric sensors for user authentication and health monitoring.

Through fingerprints or heartbeat measured via ECG, the user can enable in-store contactless payments, passwordless logins to online services, ticketing, loyalty cards, access to gyms, offices and homes, car door locks, digital identity and more. In early 2022, the wearable will be certified as a medical device capable to perform analysis of cardiac arrhythmias, blood oxygen saturation and body temperature.

Flywallet is proposing a unique “Biometric Wearable Platform as a Service” model for e-money and payment institutions, banks, insurance companies and businesses. By connecting via dedicated APIs, the Flywallet Platform allows Partner companies to deliver new types of digital services easily and securely through the proprietary wearables.

Valentino Bravi, CEO of TAS stated: “At TAS, we have always applied the principles of “continuous innovation” to ensure the market a constant technological and functional evolution of our products and services, both through significant investments in R&D - more than 10% of our revenues in the last decade - and through the acquisition of innovative companies.

In 2019, for example, the acquisition of Mantica enabled us to expand our offerings in the Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence areas.

Today, we are investing in Flywallet because we are convinced that offering wearable technology that is customizable and adaptable to our customers’ user experiences is a critical success factor.

We also appreciate that this project gives us the opportunity to reaffirm our decades-long commitment to promoting Italian technology in a sector that will undoubtedly improve our lives and make them more secure in the years to come.”

Lorenzo Frollini, Founder and CEO of Flywallet added: “It is an honour for Flywallet to count TAS among its shareholders and partners. Between TAS and Flywallet there is a perfect strategic fit and a total sharing of the company’s core values, including customer centricity and a relentless pursuit of service quality. In the medium term, the strategic partnership with TAS will also allow Flywallet to expand its range of services through the opportunities offered by PSD2.”

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Sophia-Antipolis, France, 9 April 2021 -  In February 2021, Université Côte d'Azur-CNRS Electronics, Antennas and Telecommunications laboratory (LEAT) and TAS Group formed a partnership to test performance and explore prospects for a large-scale deployment of blockchain used to secure and authenticate data for the activation of smart contracts. These new technologies could, for example, revolutionize the way in which claims between connected vehicles are managed in the coming years. A blockchain use case studied at the LEAT laboratory of Université Côte d'Azur, part of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) Today, in the event of a road accident, the insurer consolidates data resulting from a report filled in by hand by the protagonists. This data may be, intentionally or not, incomplete or even false. In the future, a device installed in the vehicle could send data automatically collected on the vehicle (identity and vital functions of the driver, speed, positioning of the vehicles, etc.) to a blockchain. A Smart Contract could then process this data in a completely decentralized, more objective, fairer and more secure manner. The claims for loss and follow-up provided by the insurance company could be triggered automatically based on this data. This use case is the one selected by LEAT for its Smart IoT for Mobility project led by Prof. Verdier, in partnership with Renault Software Labs and Symag (BNP Paribas subsidiary). Started in 2017, it can now count on TAS Group technology to move on to a larger-scale testing phase. Why TAS Group? Through the partnership, TAS Group provides LEAT with a cloud service platform for containerized applications and brings its expertise in application cloudification to the laboratory. LEAT's exploratory work will thus be brought to the Cloud while adapting and respecting the different types of process. This will allow researchers to benefit from a network test architecture to study the behaviour of models developed in their laboratory and very realistically simulate the deployment of their applications. The containerization of the blockchain will allow the use of micro-services to facilitate the deployment and orchestration of the architecture. The solution will also allow the adoption of agile methods based on "DevOps" principles. What is blockchain? A blockchain is like a database in which the information entered is neither editable nor deleted, and is publicly readable and cryptographically secure. Blockchain is based on the principle of collective trust. By entrusting the validation of a transaction to a multiplicity of computers rather than to a human, a fallible trusted third party, the risk of error, fraud or corruption is eliminated. What are Smart Contracts? Smart Contracts are the natural evolution of blockchain. These "smart contracts" are computer programs stored in a blockchain, designed to automatically execute a set of predefined instructions, based on data from the blockchain. They are automatically executed and self-enforcing contracts. They are governed, without possible dispute, by the explicit terms and conditions set out therein, without one or more people, often qualified as trusted third parties, having to intervene to establish their authenticity and trigger the execution. In the case of vehicle insurance contracts, this new generation of contracts could replace traditional contracts in the future. Download the press release

Today the Board of Directors of TAS approved the 2020 consolidated financial statements of the Group. All economic and financial indicators on the rise : total revenues and core revenues respectively at 61.7 million euros and 60.9 million euros. Consolidated net profit up to 8.8 million euros compared to 5.9 million in the previous year. Dario Pardi, chairman of TAS Group, expressed satisfaction and pride for the excellent results achieved in a particularly demanding and challenging year, in which TAS courageously invested in an increase in human resources, demonstrating the Group's consolidated financial capacity. The three main lines of development in 2020 were: the consolidation of strategic collaborations, the inorganic growth with the acquisition of Infraxis AG , a leading player in the world of digital payments in the Swiss and German markets and the important investments in the Group’s platforms and services. Talking about investments, CEO Valentino Bravi underlined the important share of more than 10% of revenues destined in 2020 for the innovation of solutions, which made it possible to progress in the development of the Global Payments Platform offered both on-premise or in PaaS (Platform as a Service) mode, in the completion of the  Aquarius platform for the ESMIG project for the new Target services of the European Central Bank, and in the strengthening of the PaaS delivery model related to the payment and e-money product suites. Read the full press release in the Investor section.  

The results of the interim management report at 30 September 2020, approved by the Board of Directors on 13 November, show an improvement across all indicators compared to the same period of the previous year.

Core revenues are up by 9.1% and the net result for the period is showing a sharp increase compared to a substantial break even in the first nine months of 2019.

Chairman Pardi and CEO Bravi expressed their satisfaction with this positive and consolidated trend, confirming the validity of the Group's business model, the innovation strategies and the alliances put in place with important players in the sector that have allowed growth despite the difficult situation that affected all sectors due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Milan, October 13, 2020– TAS Group, (Italian Stock Exchange: TAS), a global provider of innovative solutions in card management, digital payments, financial messaging and capital markets, has announced that it has been ranked among the Top 100 in the 2020 IDC FinTech Rankings for the 12th consecutive year. The 17th annual vendor ranking represents the leading hardware, software and service providers to the financial services industry from around the world. Vendors are ranked based on 2019 calendar year revenues attributed to financial institutions. The full list for 2020 can be viewed HERE.

Executive Chairman of TAS Group, Dario Pardi, remarked, "We are proud to have been recognized once again among the top fintech players in these prestigiousrankings. Such a result confirms our domain expertise and reinforces our commitment to invest in and deliver innovation and agility to financial operators in today’s dynamic payments ecosystem. We will continue to strive to be the best and to serve the Financial Industry, offering both incumbents and digital challengers alike best-of-breed, leading-edge solutions solutions that are real game changers in today’s highly competitive market place. By empowering our customers to adopt new enabling technologies, they can make digital transformation a reality and overcome legacy challenges.”

The Fortune 500-style ranking categorizes and evaluates the top global providers of financial technology based on calendar year revenues from financial institutions for hardware, software and/or services. These providers supply the technological backbone of the financial services industry, an industry in which IDC Financial Insights forecasts worldwide spending on IT across the globe to exceed $577 billion (USD) by 2024. 

To thrive in a digital economy, financial services organizations must embrace innovative and integrate cutting-edge technology effectively to enhance the customer experience and achieve operational excellence. TAS Group and the vendors featured in the IDC FinTech Rankings, represent those providers committed to helping financial institutions successfully execute their digital transformation initiatives for the betterment of their customers around the world. IDC Financial Insights publishes a comprehensive report about the year's findings that is available to view or download HERE.

TAS has played a key role in supporting Europe’s financial community following the recent regularity and compliance changes mandated, with projects such as the T2/T2S Consolidation and the wider changes to Eurosystem’s TARGET services, the upcoming introduction of ESMIG and a general migration towards ISO20022. As a trusted and experienced partner during past Eurosystem migrations and with its payments solutions running at the heart of the ECB, TAS has been well positioned to offer both technological and advisory support to its customers in light of such challenges. 

In the Issuing and Acquiring domain, TAS continues to lead the way as a provider of innovative digital payments and financial software solutions to banks, PSPs and Fintech throughout Europe and the Americas. Most recently it further enriched its offering by adding a new cloud-native, API-based full microservices proposal that manages all types of payments including a fleet/fuel card solution.   

This innovation-driven strategy and investment in product development have contributed to the Group’s strong financial results this year, seeing a double-digit increase in EBITDA. TAS management is optimistic about the future where digital payments, boosted by the pandemic and the new norm, are expected to continue to grow.

For more information about the rankings, visit HERE and follow on Twitter @IDC and look for #IDCFinTechRankings.

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Geneva and Milan, September 14, 2020 - Information Technology and Solutions and Services (ITSS), a global banking software integrator, and TAS Group (TAS), a global provider of digital payments software solutions, are pleased to announce their new strategic alliance aimed at accelerating innovation in Financial Services. Through this partnership, ITSS together with TAS, both Temenos partners, will strengthen their services and be able to offer best-in-class solutions in the area of Payments, Card Management Services and Intraday Liquidity management to Temenos T24 Transact core banking customers worldwide. TAS’s state-of-the-art software allows banks, both incumbents and digital-first challengers, to deliver innovative payments products with a short time-to-market, integrating with and leveraging the latest technologies and making use of rich-data APIs to offer end users a superior customer experience. For over 35 years, TAS, through its deep domain expertise and advanced technology has brought its flexible, secure and high-performance solutions to financial operators around the world. Now, supported through this synergistic partnership, T24 Transact customers can leverage CARD 3.0 IE, a flexible, modular and scalable card issuing, acquiring and processing platform that can be easily and quickly deployed either on-premise or on the cloud. Since 2001, ITSS has been committed to delivering banking technology services and solutions to banks and financial institutions worldwide. As a Temenos partner, it has supported over 220 Temenos clients as a system integrator for all Temenos products including T24 Transact, FCM, Islamic banking, TAP, Multifonds, Inclusive banking and Infinity. ITSS’ global delivery capability and extended service offering enables it to establish long-term partnerships with its clients. Umberto Pardi, Executive Vice President of International Channel Sales, TAS said: “We are delighted to cooperate with fellow Temenos partner, ITSS, a leading system integrator with a global reach and excellent reputation, to bring powerful payments solutions through an extensive library of APIs integrated into T24 Transact core banking to clients in a matter of weeks. Together we enable banks to elevate their market agility in an ever-changing payment ecosystem”. Patrick Jaccoud, CEO, ITSS Global said “We are excited to embark on this mutually beneficial partnership with TAS to offer sophisticated payments solutions to our clients from a renowned partner. As we join forces to strengthen and expand our service delivery to our T24 Transact clients, we are confident that we will accelerate business growth for our clients to remain competitive”.

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Milan, 20 July 2020 - TAS S.p.A. (hereinafter the "Company" or "TAS"), leader in Italy in the supply of software and services for banking and financial applications, also present in Europe and America, announces that it has signed an agreement with Otik to add additional competence to the TAS organisation. Otik Srl is an ICT company specializing in software product design and consultancy in the Finance and Banking sector.

The operation is aimed at further strengthening TAS Group’s leadership in the Italian and European banking market in the area of Liquidity & Collateral Management.

To date, almost 20 financial institutions and interbank service centers have chosen the TAS Aquarius solution for the migration to the new consolidated Target2 /T2–Securities platform.

The initiative undertaken by TAS is also aimed at tackling the launch of the ECMS (European Collateral Management System), the last step among the Eurosystem's Consolidated Target Services, on which TAS is already carrying out analyzes and developments, working in a collaborative manner through the Aquarius User Group in partnership with KPMG and Accenture.

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Milan, Italy, 30 June 2020 - TAS S.p.A. (hereinafter the "Company" or "TAS"), leader in Italy in the supply of software and services for banking and financial applications, also present in Europe and America, announces that today the wholly-owned subsidiary under Swiss law, TAS International SA, in execution of the contract signed on June 8, 2020, has completed the acquisition of 100% of the share capital of the Swiss company Infraxis AG, which in turn holds the entire share capital of the British company Infraxis Ltd (UK).

TAS Group thus expands its presence in Switzerland and Germany, but especially in Great Britain where it is currently not present, strengthening the foundations for further growth in the European market. Thanks to the synergies that will be created on the software platforms with the Infraxis solutions, TAS plans to soon launch a new cloud based and full microservices proposal managing all types payments through a unique platform, to be once again among the promoters in terms of innovation and among the first to guide the transition from e-money to digital payments not only in Italy, but also in the other markets in which it operates, with the ambition to become a leading company also at international level.

With the conclusion of this operation, which determines the integration between two highly competitive and complementary businesses, new horizons for TAS Group beckon. In addition to a significant increase in volumes, an enrichment in human capital, thanks to the professional figures who will join and strengthen the area of research and development, which is essential to guarantee innovative and best of breed solutions to its customers.

The President of TAS Group, Dario Pardi summarized it as follows: “The conclusion of this operation confirms our inorganic growth strategy which accompanies the organic one endorsed by the recently approved Industrial Plan. With this step TAS strengthens its market position in Europe that from today represents for us an international outpost in the world of payments. This partnership and the coming ones under evaluation, are significant milestones aimed at increasing the value of the company to support those who believe and invest with us.”

This is echoed by Valentino Bravi, CEO of TAS Group: “Today TAS is a consolidated reality completely focused on renewal. We are pursuing the goal of an important growth, leveraging our areas of excellence, supported by a continuous search for innovative solutions, by an organic development of our Group and by acquisitions of complementary businesses already consolidated on the market, such as Infraxis. We firmly believe that the synergies in the development of new solutions and the cross selling opportunities, which we will explore in the coming months, will be an important accelerator in achieving the challenging objectives that we have set ourselves."

Manfred Thomi, CEO of Infraxis, comments: “TAS has chosen us and we have chosen TAS. We are ready for the market, we have always been, but today we have, thanks to the union between our already competitive businesses, many more resources on which to rely to offer our customers more and more expertise and innovative solutions".

Read the entire Press Release in the Investor section