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BUSINESS TODAY 18 July 2019

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18.07.19 6 NEWS FINANCEMALTA, in collaboration with the Malta Financial Services Au- thority (MFSA) is organising a work- shop on MFSA's FinTech Strategy Consultation Document on Pillar 1 – Regulations. e event will take place on Tuesday 30 July 2019 at the Corinthia Palace Ho- tel in Attard. Entitled "Pillar 1 – Regulatory Sand- box and Other Strategic Objectives: Briefing and Consultation", the work- shop's key objectives are to provide an in-depth overview of the Consultation Document and to engage with the audi- ence and stakeholders for feedback. Prospective Sandbox participants, collaborators and stakeholders from finance, law and technology are all in- vited to attend this workshop and com- municate their views. Earlier this month, the MFSA launched a public consultation on the first pillar of its six-pillar Fintech Strategy. e Regulations pillar include four key areas, one of which is the creation of a testing-ground known as the Regulato- ry Sandbox. Such a scheme acts as an attractive option for Malta to become a hub for financial service companies to test out (almost in a controlled laboratory set- ting), their regulatory or commercial projects with actual financial consum- ers. e workshop will start with an intro- ductory speech by Kenneth Farrugia, FinanceMalta Chairman, followed by an overview on the Pillar 1 regulations which will be delivered by Christopher Buttigieg - Chief Officer, Strategy, Poli- cy and Innovation at MFSA. Other speakers during the Finance- Malta workshop include: Tom Bull - Associate Partner, EY UK Fintech Lead- er, Joseph Cini - Analyst, FinTech and Innovation at MFSA, Leonard Bonello – Partner at GANADO Advocates, Ian Gusman - Analyst, FinTech and Innova- tion at MFSA, Joshua Ellul – Chairman of the Malta Digital Innovation Author- ity, Abdalla Kablan – Director at wyz- er.ai & Caledo Tech, Luciano Brincat - Senior Analyst, FinTech and Innovation at MFSA, Stephen McCarthy – CEO of the Malta Digital Innovation Authority, and Ian Gauci - Managing Partner at GTG Advocates. e event is open for registered del- egates. More information and reg- istration is available at https://www. financemalta .org/e vent s/e vent/pil- lar-1-regulatory-sandbox-strategic-ob- jectives-2019/ FinanceMalta and MFSA workshop on FinTech Strategy regulations FinanceMalta events and workshops attract various stakeholders for a better understanding of various financial services matters JESMOND Mizzi Finan- cial Advisors, as manager of Merill SICAV p.l.c., have an- nounced that Merill Total Re- turn Income Fund, one of the sub-funds of Merill SICAV p.l.c., achieved a four-star rating from Morningstar Inc. The sub-fund has per- formed strongly and ranked first quartile over several investment periods, for the years 2017, 2018 and year-to- date, as at the end of June. Morningstar Inc. is an in- vestment research company which was founded thirty five years ago in the US, provid- ing investment research and influential recommendations in the global asset manage- ment industry. Morningstar is considered extremely pow- erful and its "star" recom- mendations and ratings thus bring a significant level of credibility to fund managers and their fund strategies. The Morningstar Rating is a measure of a fund's risk-ad- justed return, in essence it is purely a mathematical meas- ure that shows how well a fund's past returns have com- pensated shareholders for the amount of risk it has taken on. Such rating thus helps in- vestors assess a fund's track record relative to its peers. Merill SICAV p.l.c. launched its first sub-fund in February 2016, the Merill Total Return Income Fund with an initial seed capital of €15 million. In April 2017, two new sub- funds were launched – Merill Global Equity Income Fund and Merill High Income Fund. A new sterling hedged share class of the Merill High In- come Fund was the latest ad- dition to the range of funds, launched earlier this year. A Morningstar rating is generally given to funds which have been active for at least three years, hence the accreditation for the Merill Total Return Income Fund. Interestingly to note that in just over three years the total assets under management for Merill SICAV p.l.c. exceeded a remarkable €92 million. To complement the steady growth of Merill SICAV p.l.c, a new advertising campaign was launched where the graphic animations which represent each sub-fund have been transformed into young promising Maltese athletes namely gymnast Sana Grillo, weightlifter Yazmin Zammit Stevens and basketball player David Bugeja. Four-star rating from Morningstar for Merill Total Return Income Fund

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