Italy’s UniCredit expands payments partnership with Mastercard

ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s second-largest bank UniCredit said on Friday it had entered into an enlarged payments partnership with Mastercard.

The agreement covers 13 banks in 12 markets, totalling 20 million cards, and will help deliver payment innovation and enhanced digital experiences to customers, UniCredit said.

“This is the first time any large commercial bank has put in place a single-card multi-market strategy of this scale in Europe,” the Milan-based lender said in a statement.

It gave few other details of the partnership.

Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach was quoted in the same statement saying that the Italian bank has been “an important partner for many years”.

(Reporting by Alvise Armellini, editing by Gavin Jones)