Ixaris, the electronic payments solutions company, has completed its move to its new premises at San Ġwann’s Capital Business Centre, which were inaugurated recently by University of Malta rector Juanito Camilleri.
A gathering of Ixaris’ teams, business partners, supporters and friends served a dual purpose as the company celebrated 10 years in business. Guests included bankers, finance professionals and some of the best IT brains in Malta.
Little known in Malta, but hugely successful internationally, Ixaris has evolved from a start-up of three techies working at a kitchen table in a Ta’ Xbiex property to a 100-strong team generating a revenue of €10 million.
At the inauguration, founder and chief executive Alex Mifsud, who graduated and has lectured at the University of Malta, reminisced on Ixaris’s beginnings and its mission.
“Ixaris has a vision to make the movement of money around the world as fast and as cost-effective as the movement of information. Think of our vision as a sort of Internet for Money,” he told guests.
“Today, we deliver money in the form of virtual and physical prepaid cards, as well as local and SWIFT bank transfers to more than 180 countries around the world. We have over a million registered users on our Entro Pay online payment service. Our platform is increasingly being used by corporates – some of them multinationals.”
Ixaris’s business customers include IMS, one of the world’s top three pharmaceutical market intelligence firms worldwide, which uses the platform to pay doctors in 12 countries for submitting information on drugs and treatments.
Ixaris owes its birth to a collection of technical concepts Dr Mifsud developed with “brilliant student” Roderick Farrugia.
Other technical, commercial and marketing experts were soon involved in the evolution of those concepts. With no money available, Ixaris issued IOUs which would translate into shares or cash if ever anything come of the venture.
Ixaris was formally established by William Lorenz and Damon Hart-Davis, both of whom have since moved on to lead their own ventures.
Dr Mifsud had particular thanks for Bank of Valletta and Visa Europe for their belief in Ixaris’s offering. BoV remains a key partner of Ixaris, apart from Visa, Master Card, Worldpay, Barclays, and many others.