MILAN (Reuters) – Italian utility Enel SpA has agreed to buy 50% of Italy’s Mooney to take joint control of the payments firm with Intesa Sanpaolo (OTC:) SpA and create a European-based fintech group.

Mooney is valued at $1.385 billion ($1.6 million) under the agreement. Enel (MI:). Intesa and CVC Capital Partners will purchase the remaining 70% of a private equity company. Through its Banca 5 unit, Intesa has 30% ownership of Mooney.

According to the companies, Enel will pay between 334m and 361m euros for its stake and Intesa between 88m and 94m euros for the remainder of 20%.

Enel’s financial services business in Italy will be sold to Mooney by the time the deal is completed. This transaction amounts to 140 million Euros. It builds scale in an industry which has experienced rapid growth during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Enel last year became the first of Europe’s big utilities to launch new digital banking services.

As it increases digitalization within its businesses and networks, it sees open and payment services like wealth management and insurance to be a potential source of growth.

“… digital payments (are) being increasingly utilized on power bills as well as on advanced, ‘beyond commodity’ services, such as electric mobility”, Enel Chief Executive Francesco Starace said.

Mooney processed 20% of Enel’s electricity bills last year and had sales of around 153 million euros. A stake is also held in the digital platform which provides more than 2,000,000 customers with mobility services.

Intesa Sanpaolo claimed that Mooney would reduce the costs of serving customers not interested in its branches as well as help to acquire new clients.

Mooney sees Italy’s most important bank as an asset that will help it steer its branches to higher-margin areas like wealth management, insurance, and other services.

($1 = 0.8826 euro)