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More than 30,000 professionals make up the ecosystem of Cetif: we facilitate the meeting and exchange between banks, insurers and companies in an academic Center, competent and independent environment to share knowledge, experience and strategies on the most innovative drivers of change.
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More than 40 Executive Education tracks, 4 Master's programs and numerous Company Specific Programs: we transfer innovative financial-oriented content with a scientific approach.
An experimental spin off combining academic research and entrepreneurial approach: we turn innovation and digitization into a concrete business advantage.
Cetif Advisory, in collaboration with Nexi and Reply, announced the entry into operation of Italy's first platform for the complete lifecycle management of surety bonds, with the notarization of these using blockchain technology. The platform, which has been active on the market since September 2024, has already completed the uploading of the first surety bond, marking an important milestone in the digitalization path of the financial sector.
As the three companies point out in a note, the project took shape in October 2019 with the aim of solving some central issues in the surety industry, such as poor digitization, high risk of fraud, and often fragmented and unstructured management of guarantees. To address these critical issues, an experimental phase was launched between February and December 2020, in which 29 companies, including banks, insurance companies, associations and consortia, participated. During this phase, a Minimum viable product (Mvp), based on the blockchain Corda R3 technology from Nexi, a European leader in digital payments, was developed under the supervision of a scientific committee composed of several industry authorities.
The conclusion of the trial in December 2020 led to the start of the industrialization phase of the platform between 2021 and 2023. In particular, in-depth legal, technical and functional analyses were conducted during this period to make the platform suitable to meet market needs. With the introduction of the new procurement code in early 2023, the platform also had to be updated to comply with new regulatory requirements and directives from the Agency for Digital Italy (Agid).
As of September 12, 2024, Banca Passadore thus became the first bank operating on the platform. Thanks to this innovative infrastructure, the institution completed the uploading and notarization of a surety bond through technology blockchain, allowing its validity to be verified through a public portal. In fact, this is a pivotal moment for the industry, given that the adoption of this technology provides greater transparency, security and traceability than traditional methods.