Nexi announced yesterday a strategic collaboration with Microsoft aimed at innovating digital payments solutions and helping digitalization of SMEs, Corporates, Public Administrations and Financial Institutions across multiple European markets through vertical value-added solutions to respond to specific needs as easy to adopt one-stop-to-digital packages for small businesses, secure scalable payment cloud-based infrastructures for public entities to serve citizens, for corporates to optimize payment and cash operations and for financial companies to leverage new digital native
scenarios for their customers.

As a result of the agreement, Nexi has been selected as one of the main payment providers for e-commerce acceptance in Italy, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Nexi and Microsoft will collaborate to embed Nexi payments solutions with Microsoft Cloud services and solutions.

Nexi will leverage Microsoft Azure Cloud solutions to accelerate the transformation of its own platforms and to bring further innovation agility into the IT Infrastructure, leveraging the Data Center Modernization and Consolidation scenarios.

Both companies are willing to closely collaborate on driving wide market adoption of joint solutions and to co-create new products that leverage respective areas of expertise.

“The strategic partnership with Microsoft demonstrates the power of combining deeply local payments expertise with European scale”

says Paolo Bertoluzzo, CEO of Nexi Group

“We are proud to help a global player such as Microsoft to increase local reach in strategic markets with our digital payment solutions. It is a concrete proof of our unique ability to bring together European scale, best-in-class solutions and deep local expertise. We expect our joint investment in this partnership will accelerate the digitization of payments in Europe and our own cloud transformation, but more importantly, together we will enable innovative solutions, increased agility and superior efficiency for SMEs, Corporates, Public Administration and Financial Institutions. Furthermore, it will allow Nexi to accelerate the integration of payment capabilities into software platforms to become the “preferred payment partner” for ISVs, also leveraging Azure capabilities”.

“Digital payment innovation enables simpler, more frictionless experiences for customers -benefitting financial institutions, companies and consumers. Nexi will leverage the Microsoft secure cloud infrastructure and partner ecosystem to extend its digital payment solutions to European markets. In addition to the benefits this will bring to end users, I see the potential for this expansion to fuel innovation in the broader industry, creating new opportunities for ISVs and startups. Microsoft will also benefit from the Nexi capabilities and solutions for our own e-commerce in several European markets,”

says Ralph Haupter, President Microsoft EMEA

Key points of the collaboration

• Microsoft has been selected by Nexi as preferred cloud provider with its Azure Cloud Services and solutions for Nexi platforms and data centers transformation journey. Microsoft unique capabilities will help Nexi in further improving both innovation agility and efficiency, while maintaining best-in-class service levels, cybersecurity and data protection standards. Nexi will leverage the Italy North datacenter region cloud services when available in the future.
• Nexi has been selected by Microsoft as one of its main payment providers for the online business in core European markets. The PayTech’s digital PSP and collection solutions will be integrated with the digital properties of Microsoft, focusing at the start on four European countries (Italy, Denmark, Sweden and Norway) with future expansion options into other markets. This will allow Microsoft to fully take advantage of Nexi unique combination of European scale and extensive local expertise.
• Nexi and Microsoft intend to collaborate on payments capabilities integration into Microsoft solutions and on joint go-to-market on Independent Software Vendors (ISV) to land vertical scenarios and relevant use cases for companies and entities in the markets of interests. Microsoft is willing to explore the integration of Nexi payment APIs on Microsoft products and services, directly or indirectly through Microsoft Cloud services and/or Marketplaces. The two companies intend to launch a joint proposition for ISVs, Software Companies and Startups, focusing in a first phase on Italian market, and over time extending the approach to other European markets. The partnership is aiming also to focus on a close collaboration in joint marketing and communication initiatives bringing value-added services and ISV solutions to the SME segment in onestop-to digital approach, including partner evangelization activities, developer trainings and dedicated support to facilitate development and adoption of digital transformation opportunities, accelerating sustainable growth.
• Microsoft and Nexi are willing to collaborate to co-create new joint services and solutions, including propositions for both SMEs and Corporates, integrating Nexi solutions within Microsoft Cloud services and solutions.

Featured image credit: edited from Unsplash