Swiss Post loses its banking partner

The Austrian Post has introduced its new banking partner in mid-September: not the Volksbanks, nor the German Commerzbank, nor the Spanish Santander, but the FinTech group, which is almost unknown in this country, should replace the Bawag from By the end of 2019, 35 million euros were hastily invested in German society. The post office wanted to become a bank.

But now follows the next blow: Cooperation proudly proclaimed is nothing. The FinTech Group and the Post Office have agreed to refrain from the planned creation and capitalization of a 50/50 joint venture to provide financial services, the state-owned company said in a statement on Tuesday. press.

No indication of reasons

A week and a half ago, when presenting the quarterly data, Georg Pölzl, Managing Director of Post-General, said that there was no plan B: "For me, the l & # 39; failure is not an option ". The goal is to enter the market with the bank in the middle of next year – and thus create a new financial services company nationwide.

Why was the agreement broken? "We do not want to say who it was or what did not fit," said a spokesman. In any case, we are not on the schedule "very ambitious"
arrive at a common denominator.

The FinTech group apparently never asked the Federal Financial Markets Authority (FMA) to obtain a license extension. "Many discussions have resulted in no request from the FinTech group," said Tuesday the FMA spokesman at APA. In addition, the allegations did not concur with the fact that a FMA concession procedure would have taken so long that there would have been no approval before the beginning of 2020. He also indicates that the FinTech group could in principle also operate in Austria with its German banking license.

Back to the top

La Poste does not want to give up: it pursues the goal of offering financial services to its customers through its branch network, according to the statement released today. It means: back to the beginning, after more than a year. And there is not much time left: the cooperation with the Bawag ends in 2019.

In reality, the post office was only looking to replace the Bawag. After a partner who offers his services in the post offices and gives commissions for the use of the infrastructure. But it turned out to be much more difficult than expected. Foreign banks signaled early. But even the very advanced negotiations with the Volksbanks have finally failed because of the resistance of some parts of the group.

FinTech AG is headquartered in Frankfurt. It offers IT services to financial service providers, but also has its own central banking system. Their retail brand, Flatex, has been heavily involved in the German and Austrian B2C online brokerage market for years. The company is listed on the stock market and currently stands at approximately 360 million euros. Last year, FinTech earned 17 million euros.

The envisaged Joint Undertaking should have signed a cooperation agreement with Post AG in order to use the branch and distribution network with the 433 autonomous postal agencies and the 1,351 postal partners. There should be a computer cooperation agreement with Fintech. It would have brought the Germans over a period of ten years to a turnover of 100 million euros.

An badysis of the joint venture project by the Augsburg-based investment company GBC AG concluded that funding for the FinTech Group's joint venture projects is already largely guaranteed for the next five years. The risks badociated with implementation have been clbadified as "extremely low", as Swiss Post can use the existing infrastructure economically and over time. In comparison, building a comparable infrastructure would involve huge costs. FinTech has taken one of the most important milestones in recent history.

FinTec's share falls

The joint venture should have had 200 million euros of own funds. Half should come from the post office. In addition, it was agreed that the yellow giant would participate in the group Fintech about 7%, as part of a capital increase of 35 million euros. This was completed on September 24th. Swiss Post holds 1.225 million FinTech shares, or 6.54% of the shares. She should have a seat on the supervisory board.

The issue price of young FinTech shares was 28.50 euros. Monday, the paper cost only 20.70 euros. Tuesday morning, the price fell nine percent. Post AG's share fell by 2% at the start of the session, putting it in last place on the Vienna Stock Exchange.

(Red.)