Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/644193
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 24 FEBRUARY 2016 11 Business Today www.creditinfo.com.mt info@creditinfo.com.mt Tel: 2131 2344 Your Local Partner for Credit Risk Management Solutions Supporting you all the way Money Market Report for the week ending February 19, 2016 ECB Monetary Operations On Monday, February 15, the European Central Bank (ECB) announced its weekly main refinancing operation (MRO). The operation was conducted on Tuesday, February 16, and attracted bids from euro area eligible counterparties of €61.80 billion, €1.60 billion higher than the bid amount of the previous week. The amount was allotted in full at a fixed rate equivalent to the prevailing MRO rate of 0.05%, in accordance with current ECB policy. On Wednesday, February 17, the ECB conducted a seven- day US dollar funding operation through collateralised lending in conjunction with the US Federal Reserve. This operation attracted bids of $0.09 billion, which was allotted in full at a fixed rate of 0.89%. Domestic Treasury Bill Market In the domestic primary market for Treasury bills, the Treasury invited tenders for 91-day and 182- day bills maturing on May 19 and August 18, 2016, respectively. Bids of €1.00 million were submitted for the 91-day bills, with the Treasury accepting them all, while no bids were submitted for the 182-day bills. Since €21.00 million worth of bills matured during the week, the outstanding balance of Treasury bills decreased by €20.00 million, to stand at €323.85 million. The yield from the 91-day bill auction was -0.130%, up by 1.1 basis points from bids with a similar tenor issued on February 11, 2016, representing a bid price of 100.0329 per 100 nominal. During the week under review, there was no trading on the Malta Stock Exchange. On Tuesday the Treasury invited tenders for 91-day and 182-day bills maturing on May 26 and August 25, 2016, respectively. Unemployment down in January In January, the number of persons registering for work stood at 4,710 compared to 6,384 in the corre- sponding month last year. Data provided by the Employment and Training Corporation (ETC) for January indicate a decrease of 1,602 persons registering under Part I and a decrease of 72 among those registering under Part II of the unemployment register, when compared to January 2015. Overall, decreases in registered unemployment were recorded among all age groups. When compared to January last year, registrants for work decreased irrespective of how long they had been registering. The largest decrease was recorded among persons who had been registering for over one year. The number of persons with a disability who were registering for work also decreased by 156 to 391. Males accounted for 78.8 per cent of total registrants with a disability. The largest share of males on the unemployment register sought occupations as crafts and related trade workers (17.7 per cent), whereas their female counterparts mostly sought occupations as clerical support workers (29.1 per cent). The registered unemployment rate in August 2015 stood at 2.8 per cent of the labour supply, (excluding part-time employment), and varied from 3.2 per cent among men to 2.0 per cent among women. Zanzi Homes invest in Oculus Rift to offer home buyers virtual reality experience Zanzi Homes will soon be offer- ing property hunters the chance to view tens of homes from the comfort of their sofa, using cut- ting-edge virtual reality technol- ogy. The local proptech company has invested in the Oculus Rift, the Facebook-owned virtual reality technology that is scheduled for public release in March. Originally launched as a Kickstarter project, the head- mounted Oculus Rift creates a virtual reality experience around the subject, immersing them into complex 3D spaces that can be explored from a stationary position. Zanzi Homes is the sister company of Quicklets (www. quicklets.com.mt) which has grown rapidly into Malta's biggest website for letting. Zanzi Homes is planning to roll out its virtual realty service as soon as the consumer version of the technology hits the market. "We've been playing with the developers' version of the Oculus Rift for six months now. The more we use it, the more excited we get. This is going to be a game changer in the industry and we're proud to be the first ones to start using it," says Steve Mercieca, founder of Zanzi Homes and Quicklets. "The capabilities are endless. Our idea is first to let the customer view a number of properties from the comfort of our offices. Then we will shortlist the best ones, allowing us to save lots of valuable time that would otherwise have been spent negotiating appointments, driving around in traffic or entering messy building sites," he added. Virtual reality will remove all the negative aspects of property viewing, saving time and money for both the customer and property agents. "Instead of showing a customer 10, 20, sometimes 50 properties over several weeks and months, we can explore even more properties from the comfort of our offices in under half an hour over a couple of beers and finger food," said Mercieca, adding that physical property visits could then be whittled down to just three or four selected homes. "We will be saving time for everyone involved and turn an otherwise tiring experience into a fun and easy experience that also gives them something to talk about when they leave our offices," he added. Co-founder Sami Badder said, "Our vision has always been to make processes shorter and more effective, both for our customers and for our specialists. Our tech is the secret of our growth, as we strive to automate as much of the process as possible making full use of the contemporary tools at our disposal." Quicklets has already disrupted the property industry in Malta with the use of Inspire 1 drone imagery and a high-tech property database that maximises efficiency. Quicklets also offers people the chance to become virtual agents by submitting property leads, which are then tracked for commissions after a sale is made. The plan is to do the same with Zanzi Homes in the sales segment. Zanzi Homes co-founders Steve Mercieca and Sami Baddar demonstrate the Oculus Rift to one of their property specialists.