(Bloomberg) -- UniCredit SpA agreed to buy Polish banking services provider Vodeno and Belgian digital bank Aion Bank SA for about €370 million ($402 million), allowing the Italian lender to advance digitalization and expand in a key eastern-European market.
The deal will see UniCredit bring more technological expertise in-house through its acquisition of cloud-based banking technologies and allow it to target new client segments, it said in a statement on Wednesday. It adds about 200 engineers, developers and data scientists to its workforce.
Bloomberg earlier reported that UniCredit was discussing a potential acquisition of Vodeno with its owner Warburg Pincus.
UniCredit’s Chief Executive Officer Andrea Orcel is ramping up investments in digitalization and technology at a time when banks are spending billions to upgrade legacy IT systems and cut back-office costs. The CEO is also looking to expand in key central and European markets, where it is one of the main European players.
The acquisition will impact UniCredit’s consolidated CET1 ratio by about 15 basis points at the time of the transaction, which is expected in fourth quarter.
The purchase of the Warsaw-based Vodeno and Aion Bank, which is focused on online retail banking in Poland and is the main partner for country’s leading e-commerce platform Allegro, allows UniCredit to re-enter a market that it left in 2017 when it sold Bank Pekao.
Poland “has always been a key market for us, it is critical for Central and Eastern Europe,” Orcel said in an interview to Class-CNBC, adding that the bank left the country with Pekao sale “reluctantly.”
--With assistance from Konrad Krasuski.
(Updates with comments on Polish market)
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
