Bank of Valletta’s credit cards operate with software designed by a Russian-linked company that is involved in designing and servicing the Russian payment and card transaction system. OpenWay uses software called Way4 for card payment transactions and Bank of Valletta uses this software to act as one of its intermediaries between the merchant and the bank. The software is licensed and serviced by the company.
The ownership of the company is layered by a string of companies in Malta and Cyprus, but most of its senior staff and top executives are Russian. The company designed the Russian payment system called “Mir” following the Crimean invasion and has claimed it withdrew from the Russian market, but has been alleged to be still operating with other companies that it owns and has been essential to filling the gap in Russian payments systems following the exit of Visa and other big payment processors from Russia.
The Maltese company called OpenWay Holding Limited owns another Maltese-based company called OpenWays Software Limited. OpenWay Holdings is owned by a company in Cyprus called Tropon Consulting Limited.
In 2021 OpenWay Holdings declared a dividend of ย78 million, which is effectively tax-free according to Maltese tax regulations for overseas companies. In 2020 it declared a dividend of ย3 million.
A Maltese director of OpenWay also seems to be involved in another Maltese-based company owned by a Russian. John Carbone is involved in a company owned by a Russian citizen called Rod Developments, apart from fronting a fund estimated to be worth up to ย80 million called Sparks Limited (banked at Sparkasse) for an anonymous individual based in Cyprus.
OpenWay is not just a company of an innocent Russian businessperson who ended up in Europe, but a very trusted and close collaborator of the Russian government having been chosen to spearhead payments systems in Crimea following its annexation. This reminds me of John Christmas’s stories who recounts of Russian companies in Cyprus with direct links to the Kremlin.
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