Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1162794
05.09.19 TRENDSETTERS A number of countries around the world are offering citizenship-by-in- vestment programmes, with Malta also having its own scheme, the Individual Investment Programme (IIP). e various programmes each offer their own benefits, and require vary- ing com-mitments from those opting to use them. ere is a website, how- ever, which is offering a solution to the challenge of finding all the required information about the different pro- grammes: CiviQuo. CiviQuo.com is the world's first residency and citizenship by investment e-market place, bringing togeth- er a large selection of programmes, li- censed agents and i n - t e r m e d i a r i e s from around the world, making it easy for them to showcase what they are offering in a clear and transpar- ent manner. e brains behind CiviQuo is its founder, Yakof Agius, who has over 15 years' expe-rience in different industries and disciplines, including financial ser- vices, banking, call centre operations, IT services and residency and citizen- ship-by-investment. rough his work with a large firm in the industry, Agius was a key con- tributor to the developments of Mal- ta's IIP, and was later Chief Officer for Risk and Compli-ance for the government agency which managed the pro- gramme. e platform he creat- ed – CiviQuo – makes life easier for persons in- terested in cit-izenship-by-investment, who can use the website as a resource to find information on programmes and service providers without having to browse through many dif-ferent sites. All service providers who feature on the website have to disclose the profes- sional fees they will be charging. More- over, once client have filed their citizen- ship appli-cation, they are also able to rate the service provider they used. CiviQuo – which lists Malta, Anti- gua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis and Turkey as "trending destinations" – is billing itself as a new transparent formula that makes the process easier for individuals and transforms the way agents market them-selves. e process to follow is simple. A user first registers and is subsequently able to view a list of agents offering citizen- ship programmes. Once a programme is cho-sen, the user then chooses an agent and pro- ceeds to fill in the required details. e application is then submitted for the agent to process. CiviQuo also includes a risk assess- ment framework (RAF), which it as- serts is cur-rently the most advanced such framework for the residency and citizenship by in-vestment industry. e RAF can be used by residen- cy-by-investment units (RIUs) and cit- izenship-by-investment units (CIUs), service providers, intermediaries and any other industry stakeholder who en- gages in the assessment of risks related to RCBI applications. CiviQuo, your one-stop-shop for citizenship-by-investment schemes Yakof Agius