Municipal loan platform komuno now available for all banks
Frankfurt am Main – The municipal loan platform komuno, a joint venture between Helaba Digital
and Lucht Probst Associates (LPA), has also been available to all banks
outside the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe since the beginning of the year.
Using komuno, municipal investment loans and cash advances can be
processed quickly, efficiently and easily. Since the launch of the
platform in September 2018, numerous towns, municipalities and districts
as well as savings banks and Landesbanks have already decided to use
the platform. In addition to regular invitations to tender on komuno,
the growing demand has also led to the first successful, legally binding
transactions on the platform. In order to further consolidate this
positive momentum, the platform was extended to all banks on 1 January
2019.
In future, users would like to conduct tenders in a fully digital format using komuno
Now that the functionality of komuno has been successfully tested
among users of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, extending it to all banks is
a logical step, as it meets the wish of users to be able to conduct
tenders in an exclusively digital process using komuno in future. This
means that all licensed banking institutions – private banks,
cooperative institutions as well as development banks and other credit
institutions – can now register to use the platform.
“We are convinced that extending the platform to institutions
outside the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe will increase the added value of the
platform for all its users and thus strengthen komuno’s position.
Participating municipalities can now approach all institutions and
partners relevant to them via the platform and use komuno as their
primary tendering channel,” says Dr Gerhard Kebbel, head of Helaba’s Strategic Digitalisation Project.
Stefan Lucht, founder of LPA GmbH, adds: “The in-depth
discussions that we have conducted with users and partners confirm that
komuno’s functionality meets their requirements. In order to create
further added value for participants, it is now time to capture the
entire market. The use of redundant communication channels will
hopefully soon be a thing of the past and our approach of successively
digitising the municipal lending process remains a top priority.”
Developments in technology and content over the past few months have
also responded to this requirement: the tendering and bidding process
has been further improved and, on the basis of user feedback, additional
practical functions have been added. At the same time, users maintain
the control over their tenders and bids that they are accustomed to.
Both participating municipalities and credit institutions have the
option of actively deciding, on the basis of an individually defined
list of participants, which organisation should have access to published
invitations to tender as well as which regional towns, municipalities
or districts, for example, should submit invitations to tender to the
bank.
In the future, komuno’s functionality will go even further than that of a pure marketplace
A major milestone in the development of komuno’s functions in 2019
will be the launch of an interface between komuno and OSPlus, the core
banking system of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe. This will enable
municipal loans to be processed directly in the IT system of the savings
banks without any media discontinuity from mid-2019 onwards. The
further development of the existing interface to “S-Kompass”, the
leading municipal debt management system, as well as extensive
modifications to continuously improve the user-friendliness of komuno
will also be the focus of updates in the coming months.
The founders
LPA is a financial service provider with a particular focus on
capital market activities, offering strategic advice, management and
implementation services as well as a broad suite of software to optimise
processes and regulatory compliance.
In addition to a global network of locations, the company, which was
established in 1999, employs around 200 people at its head office in
Frankfurt am Main. In co-operation with members of the S-Finanzgruppe,
since 2013 LPA has also been responsible for the development of the
municipal debt management system “S-Kompass”.
Helaba Digital GmbH & Co. KG is a holding company owned by Helaba
Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen for start-up investments that focuses on
innovative companies that are the driving forces behind the issue of
digital transformation in the areas of financial services (Fintechs),
regulation (Regtechs) and the real estate sector (Proptechs). This leads
to investments that actively complement the Helaba Group’s business
model and optimise the bank’s core processes