55 applications from fintechs eager to engage with Italy’s financial ecosystem

5 selected fintechs shaping themes like AI, payments, digital identity & embedded finance 

50+ hours of mentorship delivered to support their growth

52 introductions facilitated with banks, corporates, and ecosystem stakeholders

3 successful partnerships established during the program, further strengthening local collaboration

These achievements underscore the program’s continued role as a catalyst for innovation, helping fintechs refine value propositions, discover money-movement opportunities, and prepare for international expansion.

Visa Innovation Program Europe in Italy achieved;

The summit began with opening remarks from Stefano Stoppani, Country Manager, Visa Italy, who outlined the goals of the 2025 Edition and emphasized Visa Italy’s commitment to nurturing a thriving environment for fintech innovation. He highlighted the importance of building scalable partnerships, accelerating open innovation, and strengthening collaboration across the Italian financial landscape.

Following Stefano Stoppani, the first panel, moderated by Sonia Bazzoni (Visa), brought together Julia Zheng (ALOE), Marco Conte (Congrify) and Nicolò Debenedetti (Hamsa ID) for an exchange on how fintechs can sharpen their positioning strategies in a crowded and fast-evolving market. Their discussion touched on customer expectations, early-stage growth hurdles, and the kind of strategic clarity needed to scale sustainably.

The focus shifted from strategy to collaboration, a central theme of the program. In a discussion led by Maurizio Cassone (Visa), Giacomo Chitarrelli (Worldline) and Nicolò Debenedetti (Hamsa ID) reflected on their PoC experiences, touching on integration challenges, iterative testing, and the importance of clearly defining success metrics from the outset.

This was followed by insights from Andrea Biondi (Crédit Agricole) and Stefano Metta (Finanz) in a session moderated by Filippo Manca (Visa), where the speakers explored how corporates and fintechs can evaluate partnership readiness and maintain momentum throughout integration cycles.

The narrative then broadened beyond Italy, as Yankı Önen (Wamo), guided by Melihcan Yücel (Visa), shared Wamo’s experience expanding SME banking services into the Italian market as a VIPE alumnus. His reflections on regulatory preparation, early customer learnings, and the value of choosing the right partners illustrated how expansion strategies and program outcomes intersect.

Andrea Zamboni (Visa) then presented Visa’s perspective on Agentic Commerce, explaining how autonomous digital interactions will redefine the way customers engage with financial products. Zamboni highlighted the shift toward intelligent, decision-making systems within payments and illustrated how these new capabilities are shaping the next generation of seamless, personalised customer experiences.

The day was closed by Shalini Kurapati (Clearbox AI), who provided an inspiring perspective on the implication of AI adoption. Their dialogue addressed model transparency, governance frameworks, and the considerations organisations must weigh as they integrate advanced AI systems into decision-making and service delivery.

Wamo, a VIPE alumnus, expanded SME banking services to Italy through a nationwide marketing campaign in collaboration with Visa.

VIPE Italy enabled the first PoCs and partnerships with two Financial Institutions in the Italian market.

The Italy Edition saw its first acquisition, with Congrifyacquired by IXOPAY, alongside Finanz’s funding round..

Italy continues to play a crucial role in VIPE’s mission, supporting ambitious founders, accelerating commercial partnerships, and driving the next wave of fintech growth across Southern Europe.

Hamsa ID

The program has been, without a doubt, the biggest driver of our interactions with the broader payments ecosystem. Beyond the content, the people made the difference: Filippo, Paolo, and the Fintech District team gave us a masterclass in how the payments industry truly works. We came in with a user-level view and left understanding the full complexity, and how to build products that create impact within it.

ALOE

Huge thanks to the entire VIPE team for countless interactions that helped guide us toward the solutions we were searching for. The program fills a critical gap for fintechs: genuine access to the right decision-makers. Just as importantly, it opened up the network so we could explore, challenge assumptions, and shape outcomes more innovative than what we could have achieved alone.

Congrify

Although we already had some experience in payments, VIPE brought our network to another level. Here, you can reach almost everyone who matters, which is essential for any startup. You might have the best product, but without access, selling is nearly impossible. VIPE gives you a fast lane. A big thanks to Tenity and Paolo for helping us navigate these relationships. It’s one of the most valuable parts of the program, and we strongly recommend it.

Hercle

The key theme is how open Italian corporates have become to working with startups. While we didn’t announce use cases on stage today, we’re actively developing several that originated through the VIPE platform. VIPE has acted both as an accelerator of existing relationships—thanks to Visa’s strong seal of credibility—and as a creator of entirely new ones. It also supported our fundraising: we raised $60M (USD), with $10M in equity and $50M in debt, and being part of the Visa Innovation Program was a meaningful credibility boost.

Finanz

We joined as a consumer‑facing platform. On our very first call with Filippo and Paolo, the idea of building for financial institutions was just that—an idea. Once selected, we knew we had to make it real. Since then, we’ve closed seven PoCs, and starting next year our integrations will give us access to more than 10 million B2B2C users. It’s been a true accelerator. Equally important were the people: during the Thursday calls with the Tenity team, we left each week with new introductions for potential PoCs and partnerships. It was a fantastic experience—and honestly, we wish it hadn’t ended so soon. Being part of the Visa Innovation Program Europe also helped us close our first funding round of €700k

Meet the 2025 | Italy Edition Fintechs

ALOE

A platform helping hotels offer and manage local experiences — from tours to wellness — enabling guests to book seamlessly before or during their stay.

Congrify

An AI-powered payment intelligence engine that unifies and analyzes payment data, giving merchants clear insights to boost revenue and cut operational costs.

Finanz

A financial education platform that brings budgeting, planning, and investment tools together to help users make smarter financial decisions.

Hamsa ID

A touchless biometric identity solution using palm-vein mapping for secure, seamless access to physical and digital environments.

Hercle

A digital asset liquidity provider offering institutions deep liquidity, low-latency execution, and robust risk management for tokenized markets.