“In Malta, we currently have 120,000 customers signed up to Revolut, which means that around one in four residents is a Revolut customer,” Ms Lavezzi says. The Maltese population is estimated to be around 460,000.

“We are very proud of this achievement since it shows that our product is appreciated by the local community and recognised as reliable and effective for their needs,” Ms Lavezzi adds.

Due to the small size of the island and tight-knit communities, the power of word of mouth in Malta is especially strong, which characteristic appears to be one of the main drivers of Revolut. Despite the growth, the fintech is considering establishing partnerships with local players to fuel expansion further.

“The exponential growth in the island is largely due to the word of mouth, however, we want to grow further in Malta and are already evaluating collaborations with local players to strengthen our presence and improve Maltese people’s everyday life from a financial perspective,” Ms Lavezzi concludes.

The post Revolut signs up 120,000 customers in Malta and counting first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

Subscriptions in the fixed broadband segment were up by 5.8% to 191,833 by end of 2018, as take-up of fast broadband surged by 76% year-on-year, reaching 63,799, as compared to the preceding year.

This performance has led to a reported 4.4% increase in average revenue per user (ARPU) to €117.92 in the second half of 2018, as compared to €112.99 reported in the same period a year earlier.

Subscriber numbers for mobile telephone services grew by a slight 1.8% in year-on-year to 615,843 by the end of 2018. This figure is a telltale sign of a highly-saturated market, considering the estimated 460,000 population of Malta. Calculating with these figures, it puts mobile subscriptions at roughly 133% of the population.

In contrast, at the end of 2017, unique mobile subscriber numbers in Europe reached 465 million, equivalent to 85% of the population, according to figures by GSMA, which body represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, uniting more than 750 operators with over 350 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem

In Malta, the number of mobile voice traffic minutes were up by 37.9% year-on-year to 619.1 million in the second half of 2018 (excluding roaming minutes).

Prepaid plans still dominated the segment by taking up 62.5% of all subscriptions, nevertheless losing some ground by 0.7%, while the postpaid sector was up by 6.6% year-on-year.

As demand for connectivity on the go is quickly growing, mobile data usage has been going up. Some 74% of all mobile telephone subscriptions accessed mobile data services, up by 1 percentage point year-on-year. Users consumed 3.2 million GBs of data in the second half of 2018, up by 0.8 million GBs (+30%) when compared to mobile data consumption recorded in the same period a year earlier.

Due to expanding mobile data usage, the revenue stream of local operators went up resulting in an ARPU of €92.40 in the second half of 2018, as compared to €88.86 in the second half of 2017.

Fixed telephone services losing popularity

Despite a year-on-year growth of 6.3% to 255,437 in subscription numbers in H2 2018 — which was chiefly fuelled by the service being offered in bundle packages — customer behaviour reveals that fixed telephone services play a less significant role in the end user’s life as voice minutes fell by 5.7%. National voice traffic volumes came to 203.8 million minutes, while internationally 8.4 million fixed-to-international (FTI) voice call minutes were recorded.

Nevertheless, television is an attraction force for the eyes of subscribers. “The pay-TV sector saw a 6.2% jump in subscriptions year-on-year, with a total of 165,289 subscriptions recorded at the end of the current reporting period. Bundling is also getting increasingly prevalent in this segment, with 72.2% of all pay-tv subscriptions being bundled with other services at the end of the year, which is up by 6.3 percentage points over a 12-month period,” the MCA report says.

“The increased take-up of premium content reinvigorated not only the subscriber base of the pay-TV segment but also the revenue streams of local operators. In fact, the ARPU for this sector was up by 2.2% from €44.27 at the end of 2017 to €45.23 at the end of 2018,” the MCA report adds.

As trends indicate increased online activities, mail volumes in the postal sector — albeit marginally — were down as compared to previous years. Single piece and bulk letter mail segments accounted for the registered drop, according to MCA figures. Although gains were noted for registered mail items and parcel mail segments, gains in the latter did not outweigh losses in the former seeing that total mail volume was down 0.2 million mail items or by 1.3%, MCA figures add.

As buying products have become increasingly quick and easy through our handheld smart devices, buyers are ever more likely to purchase goods from abroad. Therefore, the Malta Communication Authority (MCA) recently reminded of possible extra charges to be paid at the border when goods arrive outside the European Union.

The post Cheaper bundle packages lift telco subscriber numbers in Malta first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

SOL Networks is an umbrella brand for 15+ projects. The board of Dating.com took this “strategic” decision, during the board meeting in Malta in the spring of 2019. The group plans to expand through mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals, which will be announced in the near future.  

“Countless dating startups have popped up in recent years and we are eager to find ones that are a good fit for Dating.com Group’s ambitious goals,” said Alla Gubenko, board director in Dating.com Group. “Our key markets are Asia and the US, for their growth potential. We would love to make deals with companies targeting those areas in creative ways,” he added.

The company is developing its inorganic investment strategy and is looking to partner with early and late-stage companies in online dating, social interaction and live streaming markets, according to the press release.

Group anticipates expanding markets

Dating.com Group expects the market to grow to $3.74b in developed markets, with future growth expected in developing markets, speakers of the group announced during GDI Singapore Dating Conference 2019 – Global Dating Insights held on 13-14 May, based on research they carried out.

For instance, in China, dating companies have earned around $50m in revenue from mobile application downloads. In India, online dating platform Tinder was the top-grossing app on Google Play and the second-highest on Apple’s App Store at the end of 2018.

“The iPhone’s disruptive potential cannot be overstated. The way people conduct their lives and interact is evolving. Companies must provide creative, tailored solutions to prosper in the next decade,” said Yuri Papadin, Head of M&A and Corporate Development at Dating.com Group.

Focusing on app improvements, the research also revealed that customers are looking for more than “superficial pictures” usually posted on such platforms and the swiping-nature of selecting date parties. Therefore, Badoo — another dating platform — is preparing to switch “swiping” for live streaming after a survey of users found that 68% dislike swiping. Tinder has also partnered with Foursquare to set up “real-life” dates, the press statement says.

“It was great sharing our insights at the GDI conference. Since the market may be cooling a bit, it is more important than ever that companies do their homework and tailor dating platforms to a specific niche,” said Maria Sullivan, the head of the Dating.com Group’s New York office.

Dating.com Group is a global social discovery platform, enabling people from around the globe to connect through the power of shared interests and mutual benefits. Dating.com Group has offices in seven countries and a team of over 500 professionals and over 73 million users.

SOL Networks is an international internet-holding company headquartered in Malta. It specialises in the creation and promotion of websites where users can expand their social and business connections.

The post Dating.com to dip toe in expanding US, Asian markets first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

“The subscriber growth results are very positive especially when considering Melita was the third operator in the Maltese market. We are grateful to our customers for their loyalty and support. Melita’s success in attracting a growing number of mobile customers is the result of a focused effort to provide the best possible customer experience and value for money,” said Harald Roesch, CEO at Melita Limited.

Melita believes that the launch of mobile plans offering unlimited data supported its subscriber growth by 16% in 2018.

“Among other initiatives, major investment went into a brand new — and Malta’s only — 5G ready mobile network, as well as a significant increase in mobile roaming agreements that provide access to customers to faster and cheaper roaming experience,” the CEO added.

The post Melita subscriber numbers to reach record 140,000 first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

With the delayed deadline for a Brexit deal to 31 October, uncertainties around the United Kingdom leaving the bloc have not settled yet. Nevertheless, Revolut says they prepared for any possible scenario. “If the United Kingdom and the European Union strike a deal, or if there’s a period of transitional relief, then we would continue to passport our UK-authorised permissions — via Revolut Ltd — across Europe, and there would be no action required on our customers’ side,” Mr Litsikakis tells BM.

Should the two parties be unable to reach a deal, Revolut has plans in the pipeline. Last year, Revolut Payments UAB was set up in preparation for a no-deal Brexit scenario. Revolut says that although this entity is fully operational, it is only a precautionary measure, for now. “We are pleased to confirm that this new entity is now in beta phase. As we all sit and wait to see what happens, mitigating any disruption to your services is our paramount concern. We will only switch our EEA-based customers over to this new entity in the event of a no-deal scenario,” the country manager responsible for Malta says.

Although an uncertain environment might linger on until at least the 31 October deadline, Revolut says that European customers should rest assured. “We want to assure all of our customers in Europe that we have taken the necessary preparations to ensure that they can continue to use Revolut in the same way, whatever the outcome,” the country manager underscores.

A market of ‘phenomenal’ growth

It is almost impossible to line up for payment at any POS in Malta, seeing not a single individual flashing a Revolut card. It is equally unlikely to carry out a conversation with acquaintances without bumping into Revolut card holders, or people who have at least heard about the concept. What makes the Maltese land such fertile soil for a fintech company such as Revolut?

“The Maltese market is extremely important to Revolut due to a large number of expats, migrant workers and professionals transferring money in and out of the country. So far, Revolut has proved to be incredibly popular in Malta, with over 90,000 customers signed up to date, that is around one-fifth of the population. We are signing up around 200 customers per day and only expect that to increase. Six months ago we only had around 30,000 customers in Malta, so the growth has been phenomenal,” Mr Litsikakis says.

“Revolut has proved to be incredibly popular in Malta, with over 90,000 customers signed up to date, that is around one-fifth of the population. We are signing up around 200 customers per day,”

says Revolut’s Dimitris Litsikakis.

Revolut believes its popularity lies in the “modern design” that their mobile application offers for users, as well as the fact that they issue no hidden fees and sport responsive customer service. Additional features such as instant payment notifications, automatic spending categorisation, budgeting tools, spare change saving and enhanced security further boost their prestige in the eyes of users, the company believes.

Furthermore, Revolut allows users to buy and sell a selection of cryptocurrencies, as well as to get pay-per-day travel insurance through their app. Registration for a Revolut account takes places in approximately ten minutes, and once an account is opened, users can send, spend and exchange 29 currencies in-app and spend fee-free globally in over 150 currencies, up to a threshold of £200 every month on the free plan.

Revolut’s expansion comes in a time when people appear, albeit slowly, to become more open to fintech solutions, as well as they are becoming more conscious about taking elevated control over their finances. “Fintechs are gaining in popularity across the world due to a growing shift of consumers using their phones to handle their finances and demanding more from their banks. They are no longer happy to accept rubbish exchange rates and monthly fees. Fintechs, such as Revolut, offer an alternative to the big banks,” Mr Litsikakis says.

For fuelling further growth, Revolut is planning to host more RevRally [awareness-raising promotional] events this year in Malta to encourage more consumers to open accounts with the company. “In Europe, we currently have over 4.6 million customers and are building a European Growth Machine that will help us scale at speed in every European country where Revolut’s service is currently available to further boost our customer numbers,” the country manager tells BM.

Additionally, Revolut aims to grow out of Europe. They expect to expand into a number of global markets in the coming months, with foreseen launches in the United States, Canada, Singapore, Japan, Australia and New Zealand planned in 2019.

Revolut insists on unshaken compliance

The Telegraph broke the news on 28 February that Revolut was “accused of violating basic banking rules by failing to block thousands of potentially suspicious transactions on its platform,” the report writes. Citing documents The Telegraph says had acquired, the online daily reported that Revolut switched off its system flagging suspicious transfers.

This was briefly followed by news that CFO Peter O’Higgins had resigned from his position at the company. On top of this, Revolut ran into technical issues on 1 March, affecting their app’s functionality including top-ups, exchanges and other features. Revolut’s engineers fixed the issues in a matter of minutes. Nevertheless, some Maltese customers, reading international news and swiftly jumping to unsubstantiated conclusions, ran to ATMs quickly withdrawing money, in the belief that Revolut was going down.

Nikolay Storonsky, the founding CEO of Revolut, soon after the news broke denied reports suggesting that his company would have been involved in activities raising the issue of possible “money laundering”. He also said that no connection could be found between the resignation of his company’s finance chief and the alleged “money laundering”, despite what news reports suggested.

Business Malta asked Revolut to explain the events of end-February and early-March from their perspective. “In the middle of last year, we rolled out a new sanctions screening system in parallel with our existing systems and controls. The new system required recalibration on the basis that it was creating some false positive cases (pending payments),” Mr Litsikakis tells BM about the roots of the events. During this period, Revolut says their 200-strong compliance team reviewed all payments on their platform. “The new system and subsequent recalibration had nothing to do with money laundering, and we want to make it abundantly clear that there were no breaches,” Mr Litsikakis puts his feet down.

“The new system and subsequent recalibration had nothing to do with money laundering, and we want to make it abundantly clear that there were no breaches,”

says Revolut’s Dimitris Litsikakis.

By the second week of March, the Telegraph substantially amended its article and issued a correction statement both online and in their print edition related to news they broke about Revolut.

“We would like to clarify that there never was any lapse in our anti-money laundering controls or our sanction screening process. It is also important to note that a number of articles erroneously conflated our anti-money laundering systems and our sanctions screening process,” Mr Litsikakis insists.

Business Malta was interested to learn about the magnitude of cash withdrawal in Malta at the time of unfavourable news stirring waters among its local users about the company; however, Revolut declined to disclose figures. “We do not share details of how much money is deposited in Revolut,” the company says.

The post Revolut readies intact services regardless of Brexit outcome, eyes further expansion first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

The number can be set up through their mobile app, and provides a locally-based virtual landline or mobile number. Users can decide the country and even the local area code they want their number to be based in. The new service Viber is offering is a subscription-based one.

The company says users of the service can use phone services at the local rates of the number, regardless of where they are physically located in the world. According Viber, their service is ideal for people who move abroad and want to maintain a local number of their home countries.

“Anyone who calls this number can reach you as they would with any other local number, and you will receive the call (and even regular text messages) through your Viber app,” the press statement says, as long as the mobile phone is connected to the internet.

The post Viber introduces ‘local number’ service first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

The total number of mobile subscriptions have been on a gradual rise in the past four years, MCA figures reveal. At the end of 2014, the figure reached 546,229 and rose to 557,583 in 2015 and 585,470 in 2016.

While the number of prepaid schemes for mobile connectivity appeared to steadily fluctuate between approximately 380,000 and 401,000 in the past four years, post-paid plans were on a gradual rise from 166,150 at the end of 2014 to 224,346 at the end of 2018.

Although mobile subscriptions outpaced fixed telephone services, still the figure for landline was on a steady rise. At the end of 2014 fixed telephone subscription were 230,361 and climbed up to 255,437 by the end of 2018.

Television subscriptions on total — including analogue, digital and IPTV services — also grew gradually from 147,880 at the end of 2014 to 165,289 at the end of 2018.

However, in another report earlier the MCA said that both fixed telephone and television subscriptions recently had been on the rise due to bundle packages, when landline internet connectivity comes with a fixed phone line and television package.

Average revenue per user (ARPU) boosted from €56.21 from the end of 2017 to €59.09 by the end of 2018 for fixed broadband. For mobile phones, ARPU jumped from €43.24 to €45.44 in the same period. Despite a visible downfall around the middle of 2018, ARPU for television went from €44.27 from the end of 2017 to €45.23 at the end of 2018. Fixed telephone line ARPU, however, was on a decline for the past four years, dropping from €33.41 at the end of 2017 to €32.60 at the end of 2018.

The MCA published the figures in its updated series of Data Report Sheet (DRS) publications with a report. The purpose of MCA’s publication is to inform the general public about the main trends and development in Malta related to electronic communications and postal services.

Further figures and visual representation of data is published in the MCA’s slideshow, available for public view at the authority’s website.

The post Mobile subscriptions in Malta rise steadily by end-2018 first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

Starting as of 15 May 2019, “any retail price, excluding value-added tax (VAT), charged to consumers for regulated intra-EU communications shall not exceed €0.19 per minute for calls and €0.06 per SMS message,” the MCA reports. The new rules on retail price caps for intra-EU communications — fixed and mobile calls and SMS — are introduced by the amended EU Regulation 2015/2120.

The regulation does not restrict operators to apply per second billing. However, as the price caps are expressed per minute, it is considered that charging intervals cannot exceed 60 seconds, according to the MCA press statement.

The regulation applies to all EU member states including the outermost regions, which are part of the EU single market. For calls originating in Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein the regulation would be applicable as soon as the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement incorporates the terms.

Providers in addition to the regulated tariff may offer alternative charges covering non-EEA — i.e. third countries including intra-EU communications where the prices of intra-EU connections may exceed the caps, according to the MCA.

Ensuring consistent application of the regulation, BEREC published guidelines, laying down criteria for National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) to take into account. The instructions include general provisions, as well as specific rules where BEREC defines procedure and parameters to assess the sustainability of these provisions. The regulation covers only consumption based intra-EU communications services offered to consumers.

See the official video by BEREC below, explaining what the changes mean in practice.

The post EU comm charges to receive cap, BEREC posts guidelines first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

The fixed broadband segment saw a year-on-year 6% rise in the number of subscriptions by the end of June 2018, with fast and ultra-fast connections speeding up by 26 percentage points to almost 72% of all fixed broadband subscriptions, MCA figures reveal. “The surge in demand for products supporting fast and ultra-fast download speeds underlines growth in the fixed broadband segment,” the MCA explains.

Bundle subscriptions dominated the market taking up 86% share of fixed broadband subscriptions by the end of June 2018. Over 86% of fixed broadband subscriptions were in a bundle at the end of the first half. Fixed broadband average revenue per user (ARPU) also shifted upwards as a result of several developments, including the steady rise in entry-level access fees and the increased demand for high-quality video content, according to the MCA. However, subscribers paid less per Mbit of download in H1 2018 than during the same period a year earlier.

Mobile world speaks up

Mobile subscriptions reached an outstanding 615,423 by the end of June 2018, a year-on-year growth of 2.4%. For a point of reference, the estimated total population of Malta and Gozo at the end of 2017 stood at 475,701, up by 3.3% when compared to 2016, according to statistics published by the National Statistics Office (NSO) of Malta in July 2018.

The contract segment saw a particularly robust take-up; the mobile subscriber base reached 35.4% by the end of June 2018. “This change reflects improved allowances with post-paid plans, which generally include bigger data caps and unlimited calls,” the MCA says.

Figures of the authority, however, show that end users are moving away from sending messages in their traditional sense (SMS) and fixed voice calling, as mobile data consumption is on the growth. Mobile data usage on a per user level jumped by 23.5% from an average of 5.1GB in the first half of 2017 to an average of 6.3GB in the first half of 2018, MCA says.

Bundles keep landlines and television alive

Fixed telephone subscriptions also registered an increase of more than 8,800 signups in the first half of 2018 over the same period of 2017. However, almost 70% of all the subscriptions occurred in the framework of bundle packages, and the actual usage of those lines are on a downslide as users move toward mobile services.

“The increase in fixed telephony subscriptions comes in the wake of operators’ generally incorporating fixed telephony services with all bundle packages. Despite the increased take-up, usage for this service continues to dwindle as end users switch to mobile telephony. In fact, during one year voice calls dropped by 7.0% and 5.5% respectively,” the MCA says.

The same tendency applies to the television sector. Although subscriptions were up by 9,326 to 161,697 by the end of the examined period, the MCA explains the growth with TV services becoming the part of bundles, similarly to landline phones. “Despite the increased take-up of this service, the ARPU for this segment continued to decline,” the MCA report says.

The full market review of the MCA is available for download at their official website.

The post Telco subscriber numbers grow in H1 2018 first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

Consequently, GO discourages clients to utilise the payment and top-up terminals located in various locations around Malta & Gozo.

All payments and top-up methods are available for GO subscribers through the company’s website, as well as the recently launched mobile phone application, which is available for devices running on Android or iOs. At the same time, clients can visit GO’s retail outlets to pay bills or initiate top-up. Customers can also pay bills at Maltapost Branches.

“It is important to note that any bill payments effected on MaltaPay/Mobile Systems Ltd terminals are not recognised by GO as of 24 January 2019,” the press statement warns.

The post GO revokes payment authorisation from MaltaPay first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.