Discount Group CEO Uri Levin and Shufersal CEO Yitzhak Aberkhan announced today that they have signed a strategic cooperation agreement, under which PayBox will become an independent company, owned by Discount and Shufersal, which will hold 50.1% and 49.9% respectively in the joint venture.
The joint venture, the first of its kind in the banking system, will operate on the PayBox platform and will offer advanced digital wallet services, which will later include a financial supermarket that will compete with banks, including Discount Bank. In the financial supermarket, advanced financial products and services from a variety of manufacturers and fintech companies will be offered and adapted to PayBox customers. These services will include, but are not limited to, loans, savings products and financial planning tools.
The company will allow Shufersal Club’s 2 million customers, more than 1.5 million PayBox customers and customers of all banks, to match Shufersal Club’s credit cards to the PayBox application, to issue non-bank virtual credit cards, to enjoy cash credits back in the wallet. When purchasing in the Shufersal and Be chains and purchasing and realizing digital characters of the “Golden Character” brand. Cal will provide the platform for issuing and operating non-bank credit cards.
As part of the service offered by PayBox, emphasis will be placed on optimally adapting the services and products to the customer’s needs and maintaining maximum fairness and objectivity. The project’s activities will be based, among other things, on extensive use of the open banking infrastructure for the purpose of creating an ecosystem that will allow young technology companies access to millions of customers, while giving PayBox customers access to advanced and innovative services, all offered in one place.
The unique connection between a leading financial body, Discount, and the largest retail group in Israel, Shufersal. The merger will enable the creation of real competition for the traditional banking system. The cooperation between the parties is a leap forward in Shufersal’s involvement in the financial field, and at the same time is another expression of Discount’s strategy of expanding its activities with customers of all banks and being a leading and competitive factor in the banking market.
The transaction is subject to the approval of the Bank of Israel and the Competition Authority.
It seems that the news of the collaboration actually manages to arouse interest among institutional investors when Shufersal flew up in net purchases of NIS 12.5 million from the institutional investors, but Discount actually declined with a net sale of institutional funds of about NIS 13.7 million.