Selling mortgages to prospective homeowners is good business and competition sound. A startup founded by former ZKB bankers is now helping pension funds to reach out to potential clients.
Finovo is the name of a startup based in Opfikon, close to Zurich Airport, which aims to support pension funds to award their customers with mortgages.
The startup wants the pension funds have it handle the entire operative procedure, the company said in a statement today. It will even advise the mortgage takers.
Big Name Chairman
A daring proposition given the notoriously conservative pension fund managers and in light of the tight market. To break the ice, Finovo is banking on the knowhow of its founders, most of whom having made their careers in banking.
Finovo now can claim a big scalp: it has won Gérard Fischer as chairman, a man who knows the pension business in great detail. He used to be in charge of Swisscanto, the fund manager unit of Switzerland's cantonal banks.
ZKB Buddies
Fischer switched to consultancy when Zuercher Kantonalbank (ZKB) acquired Swisscanto in December of 2014. He also had an interest in the fintech industry, where he acted as mentor at Fusion, the first Swiss fintech incubator.
With his role at Finovo, Fischer again displays a penchant for up-and-coming companies and ideas. Finovo was founded by Christian Stoeckli and Roger Pluess, two ZKB managers. Matthias Zimmermann (member of the board at jobs.ch) and Martin Diethelm (equally a veteran of ZKB) also further members of the team.
