Unimed creates its personal fintech

Unimed Participações – the investment arm of the Unimed system – has just created its own fintech, offering new solutions to its members and beneficiaries and trying to monetize the more than BRL 80 billion transacted in its system each year.

Unimed Pay was created as a JV between Unimed Participações (which will own 60% of the business) and Q2 Bank, a fintech founded in 2020 by entrepreneurs Gabriel Borges, Eliézer Pimentel and Kaio Nascimento.

The idea of ​​creating the JV was to buy time.

“If we were to start a fintech from scratch, it would take at least two years for the technology to mature and develop,” Adelson Chagas, the president of Unimed Participações, told the Brazil Journal. “We were looking for a company that already had the technology ready to gain speed.”

Unimed is investing R$ 3 million at the start of the JV and will invest another R$ 2 million at the end of the first year, when Q2 Bank must also contribute resources in proportion to its participation.

Unimed Participações has 220 shareholders: Unimed Nacional and the various regional Unimeds. The resources for its investments come from the results of companies that are already under holding or capital calls.

The business plan predicts that Unimed Pay will generate R$ 20 million of net income over the first five years (R$ 10 million in the fifth year, and R$ 10 million divided between the first four), and that the payback occur in 3.5 years.

“But that’s a pretty conservative projection,” Adelson said. “If all goes well, the result could be much greater.”

Unimed Pay will start with two products. The first is a card machine that will be offered to cooperative doctors and providers accredited to the network (laboratories and hospitals).

This little machine will come with a camera attached to the back. When a beneficiary of Unimed’s health plans goes to see a cooperating doctor, the machine will read the client’s facial biometrics to avoid fraud. When validating the service, the machine will already generate a doctor’s credit with Unimed.

The second product is the anticipation of receivables: through the machine itself, the doctor or provider will be able to anticipate that credit and receive the amount immediately — paying a fee — instead of having to wait 30 days as is the case today.

In a second moment, Unimed also plans to create a complete digital wallet, which will be offered to 18.7 million beneficiaries. In this walletcustomers will be able to pay the monthly fees of the plans, receive reimbursement for consultations, make transfers and even request a credit and debit card.

Unimed Pay is the apple of Adelson’s eye – but Unimed Participações already has other companies in its portfolio, in addition to plans to create new businesses.

Today, Unimed Participações owns Unimed Insurancewhich operates from Unimed’s health plans to life and pension insurance, basic lines, dentistry and the asset management of the cooperative. The holding company also has a digital brokerage, and the admin developera manager of collective membership plans that competes with administrators such as Qualicorp.

Source: Brazil Journal