Finance Evolution, a company in the Lutech Group, Italy’s leading provider of ICT services and solutions, and Prelios Innovation, the Fintech arm of the Prelios Group, have signed a cooperation agreement to develop a preferential communication channel between the BlinkS platform and Finance Evolution's web-based Panda software. The partnership has been set up to enable faster and simpler management of Non-Performing Exposures (NPE).
The application integration will enable direct communication with Finance Evolution's Panda system – for banks, financial organizations, brokers and underwriting syndicates – to ensure automatic input to the standard data tape of BlinkS, the reference marketplace in Italy for NPE sales.
The partnership between Finance Evolution and Prelios Innovation comes at a time of heightened activity on the NPE market. According to the PWC report The Italian NPE Market: “Stage 2 credits on top Italian banks’ books increased by approximately 64 billion euro between 2020 and 2019, reaching a weight on total loans of approximately 14%, and represent a significant portion of moratoria (over 30%) and loans subject to public guarantee (over 10%).”.
The report forecasts that new inflows of Non-Performing Loans (NPL, which account for a portion of total NPEs) could reach a total of between 80 and 100 billion euro in the next 24-30 months. Such large volumes create a need to provide the market with fast and reliable NPE and NPL management applications.
“The Lutech Group's growth strategy in financial services flanks its already important position in credit management systems with an alliance with the most innovative players in advanced financial systems and services,” said Willy Burkhardt, CEO of Finance Evolution. “In this context, the integration of Prelios Innovation's BlinkS system with the Finance Evolution platform is just the first step in providing all our bank and financial clients with the means for structured, on-going trading of UTPs and NPLs, as well as factoring and leasing loans and consumer credits.”
“We are excited about this development which extends our cooperation with Finance Evolution,” said Gabriella Breno, CEO of Prelios Innovation. “BlinkS simplifies and speeds up the non-performing loan sale process and the result achieved with Finance Evolution confirms our commitment to support the entire financial system in turning sales from extraordinary into routine transactions through continuous technological and process innovation.”
Panda is a web-based financial management system software implemented entirely on a microservices architecture, which provides complete management of the typical processes and compliance of intermediaries regulated under Italy's article 106, who provide loans, guarantees or other financial services.
The solution is intended for traditional operators (banks, financial organizations and brokers) and for new players with different roles in financial activities (master servicers, special servicers, credit funds, etc.). The technology makes it possible to contain both development and maintenance costs by guaranteeing the development speed that is vital for this market.
BlinkS is the main NPE marketplace in Italy and one of the top platforms of its type in Europe, where it has been indicated as a benchmark by European and Italian regulatory authorities. It offers buyers and sellers a series of innovative functions. Specifically, BlinkS uses: (i) the standard input data-tape of the GACS scheme – NPE securitizations with a public guarantee on the senior tranche – for information on loans, property and court proceedings; ii) a private instrument panel for users to monitor, analyze and update portfolios and assess the data quality of data tapes. iii) a virtual data room integrated on the platform, where information about the loans put up for sale can be loaded and made visible to all potential buyers; (iv) cash flow simulation tools, to help operators establish the correct price of a position put up for sale; (v) a mechanism to make the sale a binding transaction, for faster execution. All this ensures sales are transparent, efficient and straightforward.
