Since the fall of its world-renowned Wall, Berlin has become one of the most popular creative and cultural hubs in Europe. An abundance of historic sights, art galleries and funky nightlife venues draw hundreds of thousands of tourists each year from all over the world. With its ideal location near Potsdamer Platz and next to a metro (S-Bahn) station, Mövenpick Hotel Berlin is the perfect hotel for your stay in Germany’s capital. Housed in a historic factory building, the four-star hotel promises all the contemporary comforts of a major chain, including a restaurant, a snazzy Lobby Bar, 12 meeting rooms, as well as a gym and a sauna where you can unwind after a day of sightseeing or meetings.

Style & Character

Staying true to the Swiss Mövenpick brand, Mövenpick Hotel Berlin combines excellent service with a personal touch and modern interiors. The hotel offers classic and superior rooms, as well as deluxe rooms and suites. With their high ceilings, wooden furniture and amenities such as wireless phones, LED TVs, minibars and safes, the 243 comfortable rooms and suites have a genuine feel-good factor.

Breakfast is served in a spacious glass-roofed restaurant that during the rest of the day serves seasonal Swiss and Mediterranean à la carte meals. The expansive breakfast buffet offers an impressive selection of cold cuts, breads and pastries, fresh fruits and vegetables, Go Health shots and warm dishes including scrambled eggs and omelettes, French toast, Swiss rosti, sausages and bacon.

SLEEP Individually Different

To us, the highlight of our stay in Mövenpick Hotel Berlin was undoubtedly their recently introduced SLEEP Individually Different room concept, that guarantees what all busy people value the most – a good night’s sleep. Selected hotels across Europe, including Berlin, Zurich and Amsterdam, now offer customized SLEEP rooms that come with beds with adjustable firmness, window blinds, blackout stickers, sleeping masks, ear plugs and a relaxing Lavender scent infusion for a soothing sleep experience. To create the ideal environment for rest, these rooms are located in quiet areas of the hotel and are also kitted out with high-quality natural bedding, whilst neck pillows and allergy-free bedding are available too.

Priced at just €15 more than a standard room, the SLEEP rooms create the optimal conditions for ultimate comfort and much-needed relaxation after a day of exploring the streets of Berlin.

Website: https://www.movenpick.com/en/europe/germany/berlin/hotel-berlin/overview/

By Mark Jackson, Head of Financial Services, at Collinson Group – a global leader in influencing customer behavior to drive revenue and value for clients.

2018 is set to be a game changer for the relationship between banks and their customers. Driven by the European Commission’s second Payment Service Directive (PSD2), which has now been rolled out across the financial services industry, banks that operate in the EU are now obliged to provide open access to account data and payments, to correctly authorised third parties based on the consumer’s consent. Although not yet mandated within PSD2, the means of providing open access in this way will come from the wide-spread adoption of secure Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

PSD2 is designed to encourage greater competition and innovation amidst banking and payments across the EU. Combined with Open Banking in the UK – which is the UK Treasury and CMA’s own slant on PSD2 which goes further and faster – PSD2 has the potential to fundamentally change the financial services industry, for customers and service providers alike.

Switching rates amongst current account holders are incredibly low, with just 3% of UK customers shopping around for a better deal[1]. Improved engagement, facilitated by Open Banking, could help banks attract new customers and increase the proportion of people looking to switch.

Some traditional banks have been slow to facilitate use of APIs. However, other banks on the continent are already starting to see opportunities from collaboration with FinTechs and other players in a wider banking and payments ecosystem to improve the customer experience and better integrate themselves into the channels customers want to use more regularly.

One example is Brazil’s Banco Bradesco Facebook app, which allows customers to conduct day-to-day banking via Facebook. Meanwhile, Capital One and Liberty Mutual have capitalised on the popularity of Amazon’s Alexa, enabling customers to check balances and pay bills through the voice-activated personal assistant.

1. Provides greater customer choice

Open Banking creates opportunities for banks to share banking and payment data, meaning that customer relationships are essentially ripe for the picking. Any company can compete for customers, from incumbent and retail banks, to fintechs and tech giants such as Google and WeChat. Increasing this consumer choice will shift the balance of power to customers who increasingly demand a smarter, more rewarding digital experience.

Reports suggest that a leading social media company sees its average user spend approximately 50 minutes every day on its platform[2]. In stark comparison, a leading global retail bank spends a mere 54 seconds per day engaging with the typical customer.

Banks must maximise the time given to customers by utilising the wealth of knowledge about them made available by Open Banking. The winners will be those companies that combine payment and banking information with behavioural and lifestyle data to offer new, more personalised services. The resulting experience can help secure customer loyalty and differentiate from competitors.

FinTechs working with the banks can also reap rewards, gaining access to an entirely new customer base. Many of these digital companies are in their infancy, so partnerships with large financial institutions offer scale, scope and opportunity not otherwise achievable.

2. Delivers a more rewarding digital experience

In an ever-changing digital world, customers expect an intuitive, user-friendly and flawless banking experience. Faster payment options, such as mobile wallets from technology brands like Apple and Samsung, mean that customers have become accustomed to an experience based on convenience. This represents a paradigm shift in customer expectations for rewarding loyalty. People want everything to be delivered ‘on the go’ via apps on their smartphones and other connected devices, slotting in seamlessly to their busy lives.

However, some banks are still falling short of customer expectation, not investing enough in technology infrastructure, and seeing customer satisfaction drop as a result. With the provision of open APIs, banks can encourage collaboration with innovative, agile third parties to create new customer-centric, digital propositions. Rather than only seeing FinTechs as competitors, banks should look for opportunities to collaborate and integrate with them as an extension of their own service, offering customers a more fluid approach to their finances.

3. Improves engagement through personalised offers

Customers are typically choice-rich and time-poor, so offers need to be individually tailored. The last thing they want is to be bombarded with irrelevant offers, or spend hours searching online for offers that suit them. A poorly targeted offer is more likely to drive customers away than increase brand loyalty.

Leveraging the power of mobile and data from open APIs, banks can better understand customer preferences and offer tailored rewards, sent in the right place at the right time – giving the personalised experience customers demand.

In addition to customer loyalty, providing compelling, timely and contextually-relevant offers will enable banks to create new revenue streams by upselling at optimum moments in the customer’s decision-making cycle.

Customer behaviour won’t change overnight. Two thirds of consumers in the UK say they won’t share their financial data with a third party[3], but with better education around the issue, customers will soon see the potential.

Open Banking should be embraced, not feared. This long-awaited shake-up places the customer at the centre of the experience, with a focus on engagement and brand loyalty. It could also serve to retain and grow a bank’s customer base, so long as they engage with them in the right way. Whether or not they are impacted directly by EU regulations, those that embrace the opportunities provided by Open Banking will be able to offer customers a greater choice of personalised offers and rewards, delivered ‘on the go’ via apps.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/bank-switching-to-be-overhauled

[2] https://thefinancialbrand.com/69877/digital-banks-platform-economy-trneds-open-banking-api-psd2/

[3] https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/accenture-research-finds-lack-of-trust-in-third-party-providers-creates-major-opportunity-for-banks-as-open-banking-set-to-roll-out-across-europe.htm

With this week’s market commentary from Rebecca O’Keeffe, Head of Investment at interactive investor, Finance Monthly learns about global markets, the US-China trade war and about recent activity in the M&A sphere.

A turnaround in Asian markets has seen US futures rise and eased the pressure on European equity markets. The last two months have seen global sentiment become more fragile, but the one thing that has kept markets going is the reliance on investors to buy on the dips. The last week had undermined that position in what was a worrying sign for the wider markets, but investors appear to be feeling slightly more resilient this morning.

Steve Mnuchin has taken on the unenviable task of attempting to resolve the trade dispute between the US and China via negotiation – however, he may be trying to reconcile the irreconcilable. The idea that, as one of the largest holders of US treasuries, China will be expected to help finance the growing US fiscal deficit but is also expected to reduce its trade surplus with the US by as much as $100bn to satisfy Trump’s demands appears to be a major contradiction. The question for investors is whether this adds up.

Another day, another flurry of activity in what has become one of the most vitriolic and antagonistic hostile merger bids since Kraft purchased Cadbury in 2010. GKN and Melrose investors have just three days to wait until the final count is in and much will depend on short versus long term investors. This bid has raised several questions about the difference in UK takeover rules versus other European countries and, irrespective of the result, may provide a catalyst for the Government to review the current rules to make sure they have the right balance between competition and protection.

Following a weekend at the Oscars, a frozen UK and a tax based feud between Europe and the US, Finance Monthly hears from Rebecca O’Keeffe, Head of Investment at interactive investor on the latest global markets news.

Global equity markets are fragile, and investors are wary as the increasing rhetoric over the weekend on tariffs and a potential escalation of a full-blown trade war make it possible that things could get very ugly very quickly. History has not been kind to investors during periods of protectionism and recent tweets suggest that President Trump is leaning in rather than stepping back from threats to unleash a global trade war.

This all makes it very difficult for investors to know what to do. Any global company could instantly and significantly suffer if its principal products suddenly become subject to retaliatory trade restrictions. Downside risks are therefore widespread and elevated, and it will be tricky to find sectors or companies that offer a genuine safe haven against such risks.

The major headache that the EU faces on trade is not the only issue facing European investors this morning as Italy looks to have taken a step to the right and moved towards populism and change. The complexity of the Italian voting system makes it very difficult to establish what happens next and when, but neither of the anti-establishment Five star movement or League parties are an attractive option for markets or the euro. Against this negative backdrop, investors can only be grateful that German coalition talks finally reached a conclusion, with Angela Merkel managing to hold on to her position as long-serving Chancellor, albeit in a fragile alliance.

Germany is no longer the most popular destination for commercial real estate investment, according to BrickVest’s latest commercial property investment barometer. Formerly the most popular location in Q3 2017, Germany has now fallen in favour among investors behind the UK, US and France.

Germany saw a drop in popularity from 34% to 23% in the last quarter, marking its lowest rating since Q2 2016. The UK, however, rose from 27% to 29% in Q4 2017, managing to sustain its favourability by consistently ranking above 25%.

Both the US and France have also gained popularity with investors, with nearly one in five (19%) preferring the US over other regions and 18% now selecting France as their location of choice (up 4% since Q2 2016).

The Barometer also revealed that the hunt for income ranked highest (38%) as the primary investment objective of BrickVest investors this past quarter. This has risen by 6% from 32% in Q3 2017.

Notably, interest in secondary cities as target markets continues to steadily increase (from 37% in Q3 2017 to 41% by the end of 2017). These include Birmingham, Newcastle, Bristol etc.)

Emmanuel Lumineau, CEO at BrickVest, commented: “Our latest Barometer reveals that Germany is no longer the favoured destination for commercial real estate investment, contrary to its position in Q3 2017. Rather, the UK has once again become the most popular region for our investors.”

“There have been similar changes in other aspects of the data, including the greater emphasis placed on the hunt for income and the growing popularity of secondary cities as target markets. As the year progresses and we continue to conduct our Barometer, it will be interesting to see how the industry adapts to these underlying factors affecting the real estate market.”

(Source: BrickVest)

A new study of the 50 largest banking groups in the UK and Europe calls for disruptive management strategies to reverse lacklustre profitability across the industry, warning that Return on Equity (RoE) and Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratios are in danger of falling below the average market and regulatory minimum over the next five years.

The European Banking Study (EBS), recently launched by zeb, shows that European banks are lagging behind their international counterparts in profitability and operational efficiency. It goes on to predict four major trends that will dominate the European banking scene from now until 2021 in response to the current unhealthy state of the industry.

“Profitability has become the critical concern for the European banking industry,” said Bertrand Lavayssière, Managing Director UK, zeb. “Actual organic profitability of Europe’s top 50 banks has declined significantly since 2012, and their average RoE has fallen to a level that is about half of what shareholders should expect based on a standard cost of equity calculation.

“And with Brexit looming ever-closer, it’s set to be an even bumpier road ahead. Although the top 50 European banks have strengthened their capital positions with a CET1 ratio of 13.5% in 2016, upcoming regulation and a continuation of the relatively low yield environment will increase the burden on these banks. If banks do not employ disruptive strategies to reverse their own fortunes, they risk becoming targets for acquisition. Without taking decisive action quickly, banks’ profitability and financial strength could deteriorate further by the end of the decade - we could see, in a baseline scenario, RoE fall to 1.5% and CET1 ratios below the average market and regulatory minimum.”

The zeb European Banking Study includes:

• A detailed study of Europe’s top 50 largest banking groups, with performance comparison to other global markets including US, Chinese and Australian banks

• Expert analysis of the factors affecting the industry and dissection of the figures showing increased profitability of banks in 2016
• Projections by zeb on what the next five years hold for global banks, including identification of four major trends that will dominate the European banking scene from now until 2021 in response to the current unhealthy situation of the industry
• Recommendations for what is required from European banks if they are to prosper, including major changes needed, both in terms of more stringent re-evaluation of their business models and the need for more innovative approaches

You can find a copy of the report here.

(Source: zeb)

S&P Global Ratings said that its top 50 rated European banks turned a corner last year, a decade after the start of the financial crisis, and are likely to continue down this brighter path in 2018, according to the report, ‘The Top Trends Shaping Major European Banks In 2018’.

Idiosyncratic developments aside, there was clear forward momentum, culminating in a raft of positive rating actions (outlook changes and upgrades) across a number of European banking systems in the third and fourth quarters.

"These actions reflected principally our view of improving economic risks, helped by massive monetary stimulus from central banks, and supportive industry risks, notwithstanding the emergence of fundamental long-term business model challenges," said S&P Global Ratings credit analyst Giles Edwards.

Elsewhere, for example in Sweden and Germany, our concern about looming asset bubbles receded somewhat. What's more, for a few banks, we recognized a strengthening in their balance sheets, typically improving capitalization or a growing bail-in buffer.

We start 2018 with no fewer than 15 of the top 50 European banks carrying a positive outlook and only three with negative outlooks on the issuer credit ratings (ICRs), suggesting that this should be another year of generally positive ratings developments.

Under this supportive base case, here are trends we expect to play out in 2018:

"However, European banks' progress in areas like NPA reduction and debt issuance and the emerging improvement in economic activity could yet be undone if political risks rise or market conditions deteriorate significantly," Mr. Edwards said.

Furthermore, we continue to monitor the long-term challenges that European banks face:

(Source: S&P Global Ratings)

Last week marked one month until the deadline for compliance with Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2). Coming into effect on 13^th January 2018, the legislation will enable consumers across Europe to instruct their banks to share their financial data securely with third parties, making it easier to transfer funds, compare products and manage their accounts.

Currently, the levels of individuals looking to switch accounts is relatively low. Figures by the banking authority CMA highlight that 57% of people have held their personal current account for more than 10 years, while 37% have not switched in more than 20 years[1].

However, opening up the front-end of payments initiation and information services has the potential to dramatically shift the competitive landscape. According to research by Accenture, banks are at risk of losing up to 43 percent of retail payment revenues by 2020[2], as the market place opens up to smaller, more sophisticated digital banks that break the industry’s traditional boundaries.

Pini Yakuel, CEO of customer relationship experts Optimove, comments: “The disruption coming with the Open Banking initiative will have a marked impact on customer engagement. Customers will be able to compare the value that each financial services company offers them quickly and easily. Banks will have a real fight on their hands to retain a generation of smartphone-empowered, brand-agnostic consumers.”

“As the financial services industry grapples with the implications of PDS2, one aspect that remains unaddressed is the need for better communications between banks and their customers. Traditional banks will have to respond to this new, more consumer-focused market, and develop successful marketing strategies to make sure they do not lose customers.

“Understanding behaviours, preferences and needs more clearly is key to developing the kind of emotionally intelligent communication with customers that makes them feel comfortable with their bank, helping them to make good financial decisions. Those banks who can offer something back at each stage of their relationship with each customer will set themselves apart under the intense scrutiny of Open Banking.”

“To keep ahead of their competitors, they will need to tailor services to support customers more effectively, offering real value that appeals to each customer personally. Artificial Intelligence which reveals what value looks like to each customer, will provide banks with a clearer understanding of their customer’s preference and affinities. Enabling them to cater to their needs accordingly and provide true value to each of their customers.”

(Source: Optimove)

Below, Thanassis Diogos, Managing Consultant, SpiderLabs at Trustwave, discusses with Finance Monthly the intricate planning and plotting behind the recent Eastern European cyber hack on banks, which combine both physical and cyber stealing methods. Trustwave believe that this attack has the potential to spread to the UK and around the world.

Earlier this year Trustwave was called in to investigate several security breaches which had affected banks in Post-Soviet countries. These attacks appeared to be a hybrid of physical and cyber techniques with people used as mules to open new bank accounts, and cyber specialists using their skills to hack into the banks systems. Banks which had been compromised suffered significant monetary losses, somewhere between USD$3 million and USD$10 million. Trustwave’s investigation also discovered that the attacks shared common features. These identifiers included large financial losses originating from apparently legitimate customer accounts and all thefts taking place at ATM locations outside of the banks originating country, where the money was withdrawn using a legitimate debit card.

In some cases, the banks were not aware they were being breached until the attack was complete. However, there were cases where the malicious activity was picked up by third party processors, who are responsible for processing credit and debit card transactions. Despite the large sums being stolen, the thefts were hard to detect thanks to the use of debit cards acquired legitimately through the standard in-branch application process.

A closer look

Upon investigation of the third-party processors and the affected banks, we found a completely unique modus operandi behind the breaches. The criminal gang had used innovative attack tactics, techniques and procedures to successfully complete the attack campaign. The attack itself comprised of two physical stages which top and tailed the attack – the mules opened bank accounts in the initial phase and withdrew the funds in the final ATM cashing out phase. The cyber-attack compromised four stages beginning with obtaining unauthorised access to the banks network, compromise of the third-party processors network, obtain privileged access to card management system and finally activate the overdraft facility on specific accounts.

Method in the madness

The criminals hired a number of mules and provided them with false credentials, so they could open new accounts in branch. On opening the accounts, the mules requested to receive debit cards with the account, and the cards were then passed on out of the originating country to a group of international conspirators. It is not unusual to request a debit card with a new account as the balance of the account is directly related to how much money is available.

Whilst these numerous bank accounts were being opened in branch, the cyber part of the attack was already under way. Members of the criminal gang hacked into the victim banks’ internal systems and manipulated the debit cards features to allow very high overdraft limits or no overdraft limit at all, and also removed any anti-fraud controls in place on specific accounts. Almost simultaneously the operation continued in the countries where the debit cards had been sent to. The cards were used to make large withdrawals from a number of ATM’s which had been carefully selected because they had high or no withdrawal limits. Locations were also chosen to be remote and have either no or obscured security cameras. During the following few hours the operation concluded with a sum between USD$3 million and USD$10 million being withdrawn from each bank.

Recommendations to banks

There are measures which banks can take to help mitigate these kinds of attacks. A proactive program such as managed detection and response (MDR), also known as threat hunting is recommended. Implementing a threat hunting program will allow banks to detect threats early on and mitigate them before they have the opportunity to do any real damage. Banks should also prepare incident response plans and have them well documented and tested so they are fully prepared to act swiftly if such incidents occur.

Unfortunately, the success of these attacks could be attributed to the lack of coupling between the core banking system and the third-party card management system. Had these two systems been integrated correctly the changes to the debit cards overdraft limits would have been red flagged much earlier on. A second example of non-technical control failure is that several accounts on the card management system were able to both raise a request for a change and approve the change. This process is a violation of a commonly used control used in banks and banking applications called Maker-Checker. Banks are therefore advised to undertake frequent cyber security risk assessments to detect and mitigate this type of control weakness.

Currently the attacks have been localised to Eastern Europe and Russia, however, we believe that they do represent a clear and imminent threat to financial institutions in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia over the forthcoming months. During the course of the investigation it was discovered that bank losses currently stand at around USD$40 million. However, this does not account for undiscovered or un-investigated attacks or investigations undertaken by internal groups or third parties, the total losses could already run into hundreds of millions of USD. We would advise all global financial institutions to consider this threat seriously and take necessary precautions.

To hear about tax in Romania, Finance Monthly reached out to Florica Cira who is the Managing Partner and Founder of FinACo -an accounting and tax advice company.

Have there been any recent/upcoming updates or changes to tax rules in Romania?

There have been quite a few changes in Romania in the last few years. Some of them were needed, but others, in my opinion, simply increased the bureaucracy.

2017 was a very dynamic year in regards to changes in the tax rules in Romania. An amendment was published almost every month so tax advisers, accountants, managers, as well as business owners had a busy year.

A lot of things changed in labour taxation:

• The increase of minimum gross salary per economy to 1,450 RON. The previous change was made in May 2016, from 950 RON to 1,400 RON, therefore in less than 1 year, an increase of 50% affected several industries.

• The increase of Pension insurance for salaries higher than €3,000 a month.
• The employers pay additional tax for the part-time labour contracts.
• Stricter rules for the time sheet evidence and labour contracts conditions were activated. At the same time, the penalties increased.
• The disability fund paid by the companies was increased by 100%.
• Due to a new regulation published in November, as of January 2018, a new social security system will be applied by transferring the employer cost with social security to the employees. The employer will still be obliged to withhold on payroll the employees’ social security.

The main modifications refer to:

• Increase the employee social security from 16.5% to 35% and decrease the income tax from 16% to 10%.
• Decrease the employer taxes on labour from 22.75% to 2.25%.

The actual labour cost will not change much. However, in some sectors like IT and R&D, where the employees are exempted of income tax, this transfer of taxes will decrease the net salaries with around 7%.

This major change could have a negative impact on companies considering that the budget for the next year was approved beforehand.

In the long run however, these changes could be very beneficial for Romanian social security, since individual insurance will increase. Furthermore, the public funds for future payments to social security could be managed much better.

Still, business managers and owners ask themselves whether the Government guarantees to keep the labour taxation to 2.25% in the next few years.

The period of time for implementation, software updates, discussions, negotiations between employer and employees is very short and involves efforts by both sides.

Additionally, there have also been recent changes in regards to VAT - the so-called “split payment” of VAT which set-up a new method to follow-up collection and VAT payment, starting in 2018. The system implies that VAT tax payers will have the obligation to open a new bank account for managing only VAT payments.  The companies are forbidden to withdraw cash or use this funds for anything that’s not VAT payments. The fines and penalties are extremely high if the rules are not respected.

The Government’s main objective is to increase the level of collection and reduce VAT fraud. However, specialists note that this measure will increase operating cost and cause cash flow issues.

The business sector firmly rejects this new form of bureaucracy and economic experiment, hoping it will not be applied.

As of 1^st January 2018, there will be some major changes in regards to corporate tax too. Companies with a total in revenues under € 1mil per year, will pay tax on revenues:

• 1%, if it has employees.
• 3% if it does not have employees.

In the last five years, the threshold for this type of taxation has increased from € 65,000 in 2013, € 100,000 in 2016, € 500,000 in 2017 to € 1 mil, as of 1^st January 2018.

Because this form of taxation is mandatory, it could have a negative impact on industries with EBITA lower than 6%, as well as on investment projects, where the operating expenses cannot be deducted from the operating profit in the current year or in the next fiscal years.

What would you say are the advantages of setting up a business operation in Romania, in terms of tax?

Even though there have been many changes in tax regulations in the last few years, which has created challenges in setting-up a business strategy, there are still some fiscal advantages which are worth mentioning:

-Developers and employees from R&D projects are exempted of income tax on salary. This facility can decrease the labour cost.

-Small companies with a turnover under €1 mil, which report EBITA over 7% has an advantage by paying only 1% to their revenue.

-Companies which invest in equipment are exempted on tax on profit for the value of the investment.

What are some of the key challenges of helping clients with tax, accounting and payroll?

The SME sector have grown very quickly in the last years, partially because of the investments made with European Funds. Our role is to assist and help our customers with their goals and to be more competitive and dynamic in a market influenced that is more and more by new technologies, data volume and high speed of reaction. At the same time, a challenge that we face is ensuring that the accounting and reporting standards are respected as well as that the taxes are correctly assessed.

We assist our clients with finding new better solutions to optimise their activity. Some of our projects that we work on include:

-Assisting with setting up ERP systems in compliance with the local accounting and fiscal standards. The challenge is to localise the system, ensure that the reporting criteria is fulfilled, and ensure that the automatic processes are correctly set.

-A lot of small companies have gone through mergers or have split to better organise their activity or to sell the business. Such a project implies team work from managers, lawyers, accountants and advisers.

-Assisting and representing our clients to fiscal audits performed by Tax Authorities on field like: corporate tax, transfer pricing, labour tax, VAT.

-Project-based accounting and management reporting is requested more and more even by small companies, to optimise their cost, to measure and increase their performance.

What differentiates FinACo from its Romanian competitors?

We provide integrated services to our clients for projects regarding: accounting, budgeting, consultancy, and tax-related issues.

Where do you see the company in 2-3 years?

New technology will challenge us to find a new way of using our knowledge. Booking routine works will be taken over by machines. We must be prepared for new methods like cloud accounting, and learn to be more than an accountant and become an adviser on business environment.

Website: http://www.finaco.ro/

Statistics released by the Republic of Estonia show that the number of e-Residency applications now exceeds the yearly number of births in the country. According to official data, the total number of 2017 births to November was 10,269, compared with 11,096 e-Residency applications for the same period.

“With over 27,000 e-Residency applications to date, we’ve seen the initiative’s popularity grow steadily since launch.” said Kaspar Korjus, Programme Lead, e-Residency. “e-Residency offers the freedom for every world citizen to easily start and run a global EU company from anywhere in the world, and as of October 2017, our e-Residents own over 4,000 enterprises.”

The project has attracted applications from over 150 countries from across the globe. Finland topped the applicant list, with the UK coming in 5th place for the total number of submissions when ranked by country. Of those applying for e-Residency, 41% submitted an application in order to start a location independent international business, 27% were looking to bring business to Estonia, 13% stated they were advocates of the initiative and 8% applied to benefit from the programme’s secure authentication technology.

Kaspar Korjus concluded “Estonia is the first country creating a borderless digital society for global citizens by offering e-Residency. Anyone, regardless of nationality or location, can apply for the transnational, government-issued digital identity and benefit from a platform built on inclusion, legitimacy, and transparency.” Companies founded by e-Residents work in a range of industries. Of these sectors, business and management consultancy, computer programming, non-specialised trade, tech consultancy and business support services proved to be the most popular.

“By launching e-Residency, the Estonian government aimed to make Estonia bigger – to grow our digital economy and market with new customers, to spark innovation and attract new investments. We’re delighted with e-Residency's progress to date; but are even more excited to see how the project will grow in the future.”

About e-Residency

Estonia is the first country in the world creating a borderless digital society for global citizens by offering e-Residency. Everyone can apply for this transnational government-issued digital identity and benefit from the e-Residency platform, which is built on inclusion, legitimacy and transparency. E-Residency allows access to Estonia’s public e-services and a variety of e-services provided by international service providers. This provides the freedom for every world citizen to easily start and run a global EU company fully online from anywhere in the world.

E-residents can: open a company within a day and run the company remotely, apply for a business banking account and credit card, conduct e-banking, use international payment service providers, declare taxes, and sign documents digitally. E-Residency does not provide citizenship, tax residency, physical residency or the right to travel to Estonia or EU. The programme was launched in beta mode in December 2014 so that improvements could be made based on the experience of real e-residents already benefiting from the programme. At first, four visits to Estonia were required in order to become an e-resident, establish a company and open a bank account.

In recognition of the potential of e-Residency to help unleash the world’s entrepreneurial potential, the programme has also partnered with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development to launch eTrade For All, which uses e-Residency to empower entrepreneurs across the developing world and help them access e-commerce.

(Source: the Republic of Estonia)

Failure to start Brexit trade talks at the EU summit in December could lead to “a difficult choice between two opposite policy stances from the Bank of England”, warns the senior investment analyst at one of the world’s leading independent financial services organisations.

deVere Group’s International Investment Strategist, Tom Elliott, is speaking out after the Bank of England (BoE) raised interest rates last week for the first time since 2007, and as senior officials in Brussels say the EU is unlikely to agree to trade talks in December unless the UK offers more concessions.

Mr Elliott comments: “The uncertainty over the UK’s eventual trading relationship with the EU is blamed by some for the weaker economic growth seen since the spring. Investment spending is being deferred or abandoned, with the long term impact being weaker productivity gains and wage growth than would otherwise occur. Sterling may fall victim to this uncertainty, and become a ‘big short’ on foreign exchange markets in December if an EU heads of government summit decides that no progress has been made on the divorce bill.

“They can then refuse permission for the EU negotiators to move on to discuss the post-Brexit trading arrangements, and a possible transition agreement. The UK government needs to show progress on this area, soon, in order to assure British business that an eventual deal will be had.. The longer talks on the future trading relationship are postponed, the greater the risk of no deal being in place by March 2019 when the UK leaves the EU, and the greater the disruption to the U.K economy.”

He continues: “This will put the Bank of England in a difficult spot - should it cut the bank rate to support the economy but risk a further fall in sterling, or raise interest rates further to support the pound? Keeping the currency attractive is important when the UK Treasury has to sell billions of pounds worth of gilts each year in order to support a 3.6 per cent annual budget deficit.

“The BoE will be under intense pressure to ‘support Brexit’ from influential Eurosceptic politicians, who have openly called for the Governor, Mark Carney to be sacked on grounds of his warnings over Brexit, both before and since the referendum.

“This means keeping rates low to help support the economy through the Brexit shock. Politics therefore favours letting the pound take the strain, even though gilt yields may have to rise to attract foreign buyers, increasing the funding costs of the government deficit.

“The Treasury is increasingly seeing Brexit as an exercise in damage control, but has limited fiscal tools at its disposal to support demand should Brexit go badly. There is no money for tax cuts or spending increases. This adds pressure onto the Bank of England to go easy on interest rate hikes.”

Mr Elliott concludes: “The Bank of England has presumably balanced the risks of a rate hike with the overall aim of normalising monetary policy and curbing credit growth, and has concluded that a slight dampening of demand now -while the economy is at least still growing- is better than leaving rates at record low levels that encourage over-borrowing by consumers.

“Brexit complicates setting monetary policy.  And the BoE will be pulled in two different directions should the EU summit in December fail to make progress on the Brexit divorce settlement.”

(Source: deVere group)