The service is based on the PayTAS suite from TAS Group - the leading Italian FinTech providing e-money and digital payments solutions - and is integrated with POS devices managed by PayGlobe, a start-up belonging to the Owl Group.

The Salone dei Pagamenti fair in Milan is the Italian banking industry’s foremost event, organized each year by the Italian Banking Association (ABI) and sees over 9,000 participating from a wide variety of sectors. The fair was chosen as the occasion to showcase this innovative service, with demos being offered to visitors in partnership with the bank directly at the TAS Group booth - L16.

The electronic payment system, pagoPA was introduced by the Agency for Digital Italy (AgID) to make Public Administration payments simpler, safer and more transparent. If adopted on a large scale, pagoPA is able to generate significant cost savings for public budgets, as highlighted recently in the eGovernment Observatory of the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano (MIP). By taking into account just three of the paid services managed by the municipalities (school meals, waste tax and fines), the MIP’s report estimated that public entities can save over 320 million euro per year. The savings come mainly from the process phases on which the pagoPA system has the biggest impact - payment notifications, the payment itself and its reconciliation in the entity’s accounting systems.

A nationwide system that is ready and mature on the payments front now awaits implementation of the last mile, that is the adhesion of the entities that have direct relations with citizens and businesses. Even if required by law, adoption rate still proves to be one of Italy’s greatest challenges. It is a challenge that Banca Popolare di Sondrio is turning into an opportunity, both for itself and the entire countrywide system, through the use of enabling technology and the support of experienced partners with a deep level of expertise, such as TAS Group.

"We were one of the first banks to join and contribute to the pagoPA initiative, both as a PSP and as a technological partner for our customers, fully sharing the fundamental objectives of the digitalization of public administration processes and efficiency and synergy through all the innovative services we offer to our customers", said Mario Alberto Pedranzini of Banca Popolare di Sondrio.

"We proudly confirm our commitment today by announcing a new step towards the goal of maximum diffusion of the system thanks to the new solution that implements the physical POS pagoPA specifications of AgID and adds advanced features such as cart payments, the reading and payment of pagoPA notices, and the look-up by fiscal ID code of a citizen’s outstanding payments. POS pagoPA is designed for organizations that provide services to users at their branches, such as healthcare centers and hospitals, local authorities, utility companies and many others, using POS terminals (also in multi-entity mode) to allow both card and smartphone payments”, continued Mario Alberto Pedranzini. "Our solution is aimed at entities for which we carry out treasury and cash services and pagoPA technological partners, as well as with other entities that are using pagoPA seamlessly via other payment methods. For public bodies, the use of our pagoPA solution allows them to comply fully with AgID’s regulations and immediately benefit from a totally digital collection process. One that is integrated with the treasury and cash service and Public Administration accounting procedures, which can benefit from highly evolved reconciliation tools that make it possible to drastically reduce manual activities".

The PayTAS suite, adopted by Banca Popolare di Sondrio at the end of 2016 as the basis for its innovative collections and payments offering in the PA sector, once again has played a key role in allowing the bank to reach its goals.

To meet the requirements issued by AgID at the beginning of the year, PayTAS was enriched in record time by a new component, integrated with the physical POS management solution belonging to TAS Group's core payments offering. POS terminals management is provided as a service by partner PayGlobe, specialized in the provision of payment gateway services with full assistance.

"We are constantly striving to evolve our eGovernment application suite, PayTAS, to implement and even bring forward every milestone on the AgID roadmap for digital payments, ensuring maximum compliance with standards while at the same time enriching it with innovative services and highly customized solutions for specific customer environments", stated Valentino Bravi of TAS Group. "The partnership relationship that we are able to develop with our customers, perfectly demonstrated with partners like Banca Popolare di Sondrio, and the ease of integration of our products with the banking systems, contribute to the value of the final solution and are differentiating factors that have always rewarded us so far".

The extended functional coverage of the PayTAS platform, continually recognized at both public and private levels, together with TAS Group’s excellence in the cards and payments fields, represent a new asset for the many players in the payments ecosystem. The full adoption of TAS Group’s solutions, based on open banking principles and cloud-native architecture, are further catalysts for PSPs that plan to play a leading role in the acceleration promoted by the Italian Digital Agenda.