Cyprus is a desirable destination for startup and IT innovation companies. It is especially comfortable because of the tax program in effect to support the move and the well-developed banking infrastructure the island attracts fintech companies at the very heart of the new financial revolution.
London-based fintech app Plum has opened a regional office in Nicosia, with the aim of hiring close to 20y employees on the island within the next few months.
Plum is a money management app, with its core feature being the ability to automatically save a fluid amount of money each month. The amount is determined by an algorithm which takes into account your spending habits to calculate small-scale amounts which you can afford to put aside.
“At Plum, we have put technology at the heart of our services, with easy investments, instant alerts, improved analytics and automated savings. Thus, investing in Cyprus, we are now actively contributing to the formation of the country’s FinTech scene,” founder of Plum Fintech Victor Trokoudes concluded.
Plum can also facilitate the earning of interest on your saved amount. This interest can range from 0.25 per cent AER on the basic and free version of the app to 0.40 per cent AER on its two paid versions, Plus, which costs £1 per month, and Pro, which costs £2.99 per month. In the base version of the app, Plum also notifies users when they are overpaying on certain services and bills and enables the switching to a cheaper alternative through an automated process.
In the two paid versions of Plum, the app also allows users to invest their savings. Plum allows users to set their own rules in terms of investing. For example you can determine whether you would like to let Plum’s algorithm take charge or not, if you would like to automatically deduct a sum to be set aside on the day you get paid, or if you would like to set aside the small change left by your transactions (Plum calls this rounding up).
Once the funds have been determined and defined by the user’s preferences, you can then shape how you would like for them to be handled in terms of investing. For example, you can apportion some to established technology companies, some to healthcare companies, strictly British companies, strictly American companies, and more. Alternatively, you can go for more ethical companies.
On the latter point, Trokoudes explained back in 2018 that offering the ability to invest your money into more ethical companies goes hand in hand with getting younger people interested in both saving and investing their hard-earned cash.