Moneybase, Malta’s first home-grown digital payment service is born

Moneybase, Malta’s first home-grown digital payment service developed by Calamatta Cuschieri, was unveiled on Friday.

The mobile payment app is a subsidiary of the CC Finance Group and the software was developed completely in-house, Alan Cuschieri, co-CEO of the group, said. “The mission of Moneybase is to make finance simple.”

He was speaking at the launch of the financial institution at company headquarters in Birkirkara, in the presence of Finance Minister Clyde Caruana.

Moneybase obtained a financial institution licence in 2018 and took more than four years to develop with an investment of €10 million, Cuschieri said. It is licenced to issue electronic money and undertake payment services.

The digital bank, as it is known in common parlance, operates through an app that can be downloaded on Android and Apple smartphones, providing clients a seamless digital experience. It allows users to transfer funds to their phone contacts or third parties, top up and receive funds or even have their salary credited to their account.

Registering is done electronically and within minutes, account holders will have an IBAN number. Clients also receive a physical card for withdrawals from ATMs and can also create virtual cards.

From the on-boarding system, which uses face recognition technology to match a person’s selfie with a photo of their identity document, to satisfying anti-money laundering regulations, Moneybase adopts digital technology to make the processes easy for clients, Cuschieri said.

He added that Moneybase clients will benefit from a Malta-based customer care service. “Finance shouldn’t be hard and together we can make finance simple,” he said.

Calamatta Cuschieri has been operating the CC Trader investment online platform since 2011. Cuschieri said CC Trader has now been rebranded as Moneybase Invest, offering clients of Moneybase access to more than 20,000 investments and competitive currency rates on the investor platform.

The Finance Minister welcomed the investment, adding it was a tribute to the vision of Maltese entrepreneurs and skills of the local workforce.