we.trade bolsters market position with CRIF partnership

CRIF joins as new shareholder following successful capital round by we.trade, nominating Paola Galassi to we.trade Board.

DUBLIN and BOLOGNA, Italy, Jan. 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- we.trade today announced a strategic alliance with CRIF S.p.A's Skyminder services. we.trade will further strengthen its proposition with the integration of CRIF's services, which give access to in-depth credit, financial and business information on over 230 million companies all over the world. As part of this strategic alliance CRIF has become a shareholder in we.trade alongside IBM and the twelve existing bank shareholders.

"We're very pleased that CRIF is joining we.trade as an additional non-banking investor further enlarging the ecosystem. CRIF's market leading business information and ratings services perfectly complement we.trade's vision to make it easier for buyers and sellers to trade goods and services. We are excited to work with CRIF to develop the next phase of our journey," said Omer Ahsan, Chairman of we.trade.

"We're delighted to announce the strategic agreement with we.trade. The integration between the we.trade platform and CRIF's information ecosystem will bring significant added value to all stakeholders by leveraging our data assets, analytical skills and our best-in-class technologies.

"In a phase characterized by the explosion of the digital economy, through this deal CRIF will combine its knowledge and expertise with an innovative player and leader in trade finance platforms.

"CRIF and we.trade will create synergies that will help companies to address their challenges making it easier and more reliable for buyers and sellers to trade globally," commented Carlo Gherardi, Chairman of CRIF.

CRIF is currently the leading group in the field of banking credit information in continental Europe and one of the main operators globally for integrated services for business & commercial information and credit & marketing management.

CRIF supports banks and financial institutions, insurance, telco & media, and energy & utility companies, as well as businesses and consumers in over 50 countries, thanks to continuous innovation, the use of the most advanced technologies, and a culture of Information Management.

For more information about we.trade, please visit https://we-trade.com/

For further information contact
Alan Fitzsimons, we.trade tel. +353 87 6666 800 or alan.fitzsimons @we-trade.com
Press Office, CRIF tel. +39 (0)51 4176111 or [email protected]

About we.trade
we.trade Innovation DAC (we.trade) is a joint-venture company owned by 12 banks and technology provider IBM. The company was started with nine banks in January 2017 under the project name, Digital Trade Chain, and was officially renamed as we.trade in October 2017. we.trade has developed a digital trade platform based on the Linux Foundation's Hyperledger Fabric and runs on the IBM Blockchain Platform. The we.trade digital platform delivers reliability, simplicity and security to global trade transactions across trade finance, insurance and logistics. Clients can register for we.trade via their banks.

CaixaBank, Deutsche Bank, Erste Group, HSBC, KBC, Nordea, Rabobank, Santander, Société Générale, UBS, UniCredit and IBM are shareholders in we.trade while UniCredit AG in Germany, EuroBank in Greece, CBC Banque in Belgium, and ČSOB, Komerční Banka and Česká Spořitelna in the Czech Republic are licensees.

About CRIF
CRIF is a global company specializing in credit bureau and business information, outsourcing and processing services, and advanced solutions for credit and open banking.
Established in 1988 in Bologna (Italy), CRIF operates over four continents and currently is the leader in continental Europe in the field of banking credit information and one of the main operators on a global level in the field of integrated services for business & commercial information and credit & marketing management.
Moreover, CRIF is included in the prestigious IDC FinTech Rankings Top 100, a ranking of the leading global technology solution providers to the financial services industry, and in 2019 completed its coverage as an AISP in 31 European countries where the revised Payment Services Directive is applicable.
Today over 10,500 banks and financial institutions, 1,000 insurance companies, 82,000 business clients and 1,000,000 consumers use CRIF services in 50 countries on a daily basis.
For more information: www.crif.com