Malta Considers Plans To Become World's First Dedicated E-Payment Centre

by Lorys Charambolous, Tax-news.com, Cyprus

09 April 2001

The Malta Financial Services Centre (MFSC) is said to be considering a strategy to put Malta on the map as one of Europe's major online financial centres with the facility to enable Malta to become the first dedicated centre for electronic payments in the world. MFSC chairman, Joe Bannister, told the Malta Times: 'Malta's financial service industry, with its banking skills and expertise, has created a pool of experience which could allow the island to become a market leader in the next essential step in the development of e-commerce.'

The first measures that the MFSC proposes involve steps to boost the economy and create high quality employment for professionals. There is a particular shortage of software and IT support engineers and the MFSC has highlighted the need for a 'digital strategy' to double the country's current number of graduates within the IT sector over the next ten years and continue to develop its online training programmes for school leavers and the unemployed. According to the MFSC the percentage of Maltese with degrees in computer studies is a mere 2.1 per cent compared to 5 per cent in the UK.

The MFSC also explains that there are 'fundamental problems' that must be tackled such as increasing the university's small number of computer laboratories - currently there are only 3 labs with 20 workstations each. It states: 'The organisational structure of the university means that there is insufficient forward planning of resources to meet the demands of government economic initiatives.'

The medium to long term aim, reported the Malta Times, is to develop the country as a 'globally recognised centre of professional expertise in e-payments administration, management, law, accountancy and software applications.' The e-payments strategy will initially be aimed towards European companies and will eventually provide services around the world with key target markets including countries such as the USA, UK, Italy, Germany, Spain, France and Japan.

The MFSC is planning a 3-year marketing campaign to cover brand strategy, online and offline advertising, direct mail, public relations, conferences, presentations, sponsorships, research publications and other marketing activites.

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