UniCredit and Mastercard expand payments partnership

Unprecedented commitment, first of its kind in Europe

Agreement extends to 13 banks in 12 markets across all card products, totaling 20 million cards

Focus on accelerating innovation and enhanced customer experience

UniCredit and Mastercard today announce a global expansion of their payment partnership. 

The agreement sets the stage for the start of a strong partnership consistent with the UniCredit Unlocked strategy. This is the first time any large commercial bank has put in place a single card multi-market strategy of this scale in Europe. It brings together in one agreement UniCredit’s ability to harness the collective weight of 13 banks as one institution with Mastercard’s expertise in the card payment space. The significant broadening of the parties’ relationship will deliver payment innovation and enhanced digital experiences to customers. 

This enhanced multi-year partnership provides the necessary resources to achieve a shared ambition to increase the speed of innovation in the payments space and put customers at the center. It enables UniCredit to provide a best-in-class offering for all its cardholders, delivering a simplified core product proposition, optimized digital experience with a full suite of in-app solutions, and the development of a dedicated approach for innovation, increasing payment choice to customers, across multiple payments rails.

Both parties’ commitment to increase their tangible actions across environmental and social sustainability will be enhanced through this partnership. Insight and resources will be combined with a particular focus on the implementation of new projects on common ESG goals, developing solutions to support empowering communities to progress, fighting climate change with mindful spending choices, and the ability to contribute tangibly to environmental goals, integrating donations in the everyday spend.

This agreement is a clear example of the execution of the UniCredit Unlocked plan, uniting 13 banks to deliver value for UniCredit stakeholders in a capital-light manner, taking opportunities from European DNA but working as a unified group. It is the most immediate manifestation of the potential within payments, which UniCredit is focused on to further extract value in terms of product simplification, cost synergies and digital transformation. 

The partnership will focus on supporting the delivery of the UniCredit's strategic priorities. This includes digitalization of payments solutions, offering multi functioning solutions with a fully equipped card. It aligns with UniCredit’s brand attributes to build increased preference and loyalty across the consumer lifecycle, enriching bank-wide opportunities thanks to Mastercard’s strong award-winning Priceless brand platform and sponsorship marketing assets.

“This partnership epitomizes the essence of UniCredit Unlocked and our commitment to leverage the full impact of our multi-market footprint as one complete offering for the benefit of our clients, said Andrea Orcel, CEO, UniCredit. Our geographical reach and Mastercard’s expertise in this space enables us to not only streamline our partnerships and contracts, but enhance our digital, security and product offering for all our current and future cardholders. This is a perfect example of the new way of managing projects in UniCredit, bringing benefits to all legal entities in a disciplined way and acting as a single company.” 

“UniCredit has been an important partner for many years. Together we have created real solutions that help people and businesses across Europe. This expanded relationship will build on that experience to bring new innovations to UniCredit cardholders,” said Michael Miebach, Mastercard CEO.