Monthly Archives: September 2018

Malta’s business legislation and tax systems are considered amongst the most favorable in Europe and this is supported by its strategic location straddling the busiest shipping lanes in the Mediterranean. Malta has a strong financial services sector and a thriving IT industry.

MS 16 strategy for expanding operations to Malta include specific targeting of knowledge economy sectors including financial services, information technology companies, research and development, and high-end manufacturing.

Malta has successfully weathered the global economic downturn – maintaining A or A+ status in the significant economic indexes. Amongst others, these reasons are critical drivers for MS 16 expansion in Malta.

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During the month of August, MS 16 team advised Hungarian based international bank regarding their new mobile products.

MS 16 research team analyzed European market for mobile banking and mobile payments and concluded that, overall, shoppers in Europe have shown little interest in mobile payments to date. In France, for example, more than half of smartphone users in December 2016 said they were not willing to use mobile payments, even for purchases less than EUR 20.

But mobile payments are finally poised for takeoff, according to MS 16 research. It expects the value of mobile transactions in the EU-7 – France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK – to jump almost threefold during the next five years, from USD 52 billion at the end of 2015 to USD 148 billion by 2021, spurred by increasing consumer awareness and growing retailer interest in mobile payment options.

Our research defines mobile payments as including in-person mobile payments, such as contactless payments; remote mobile payments, and peer-to-peer payments.

Remote mobile payments will increase more slowly across the EU, but will remain the largest segment of the market by a sizable margin. The value of remote mobile transactions is projected to climb at a compound annual growth rate of 20% and makeup two thirds of mobile payments in 2021.

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In 2018 from August 28 to August 31, Tennis Club ENRI hosted the largest wheelchair tennis tournament in Latvian history – the International Future Series of the ITF (International Tennis Federation) Riga Cup by ENRI 2018, with a total prize pool of USD 3000 that was donated by MS 16 and tennis club ENRI.

Players from 14 different countries around the world participated in this tournament: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus, Poland, Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, Austria, Italy, Finland, Netherlands, Russia, Greece. The total number of athletes in this tournament was 33 athletes in wheelchairs. In the tournament also was the world’s leading wheelchair players.

According to MS 16 research on facility management, the global market size to grow from USD 34.65 billion in 2018 to USD 59.33 billion by 2023.

The significant growth factors for the market include growth in the development of sustainable infrastructure, and in the adoption of IoT (Internet of Things) and connected devices for building automation across industry verticals. Moreover, an increasing need to meet environmental and regulatory compliance, and spur demand for integrated facility management to achieve economies of scale are also driving the market. The facility management market is segmented from solutions, services, organization size, deployment types, verticals, and regions.

In the solutions segment, the facility property management subsegment is expected to hold the largest market share. Facility property management solutions help enterprises derive tangible value from their business operations, by enhancing their efficiency and effectiveness. These solutions are further segmented into lease accounting and real estate management, asset maintenance management, workspace and relocation management, and reservation management.

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The alliance for tax fairness created the Tax Payer game (available on their website at www.godigs.org). This game tries to involve the public, allowing players to distribute Latvia’s state budget for 2017 – 8327.5 million euros.

The game saves each of the choices by the players and groups them in different subgroups, considering age, gender and education level. More than 5000 unique budget spending options are currently available. The results of the game contribute to the general understanding of public opinion.

According to the results, most players have recognized the need for the government to increase spending on health, which is in line with the government’s current behavior. Interestingly, most people with secondary education under the age of 28 believe that pensions should be reduced. By contrast, until the age of 20 and from the age of 45, the opposite is true – at least pensions should be maintained at an existing level or increased. Almost every third participant believes that the defense budget should be reduced, instead resources should be directed at promoting public safety, including the police. The field of education is one of the sectors that most respondents want to increase their budget spending (with the exception of school-age respondents). The heading of expenditure, such as culture and contributions to the budget of the European Union, has not been reduced or increased. Most of the games respondents’ spending on these two industries has remained unchanged.

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