The Private Advisor for Management and Business Consulting Services.

04/08/2025

83.7% of Latvians own their homes. Yet nearly half are living on the edge. Why?

Key Stat #1: Latvia leads the EU in homeownership rates at 83.7% - yet this masks a deeper structural problem.

Key Stat #2: A staggering 45.3% of Latvians cannot cover unexpected expenses (car repairs, medical bills, etc.).

The Paradox: Property ownership ≠ financial resilience.

How does this stack up across the EU?
EU average homeownership sits at 69.8%, but the financial vulnerability varies dramatically:

• Lithuania – 90.6% ownership (34.9% financially vulnerable)
• Latvia – 83.7% ownership (45.3% vulnerable)
• Estonia – 79.3% ownership (29.9% vulnerable)
• Poland – 84.5% ownership (36.3% vulnerable)
• Spain – 78.5% ownership (28.7% vulnerable)
• Portugal – 71.3% ownership (35.9% vulnerable)

The German Model for comparison:
• Only 49.5% homeownership, but significantly higher financial stability.

Bottom line: High ownership rates don't automatically translate to economic security.

Why is Latvia particularly exposed?

✔ Capital trapped in bricks and mortar – homeowners are property-rich but cash-poor
✔ Wage stagnation – among the lowest salaries in the EU
✔ Energy cost pressures – soaring utility bills and service charges
✔ Aging housing stock – expensive retrofit and maintenance requirements
✔ Underdeveloped rental market → limited population mobility

Market Pressures 2025-2030:
• Population decline – shrinking buyer pool, oversupply in regional markets
• Energy costs – rising holding costs for property owners
• Demographic shift – illiquid secondary market as population ages
• Economic stagnation – constrained savings capacity

SWOT Analysis (Executive Summary):
Strengths: High ownership levels, low mortgage debt ratios
Weaknesses: Poor liquidity, high property running costs
Opportunities: Rental market development, energy efficiency programmes, financial literacy initiatives
Threats: Demographic decline, recession risk, potential tax increases

Market Scenarios:
Bull case: Rental sector grows to 20-25%, financial vulnerability drops to 30%
Bear case: Extended stagnation, population exodus, rental market hits 30%, vulnerability remains at 40-45%

Core insight: Property ownership is an asset class, not a financial safety net.

What Latvia needs:
• Rental market development – institutional investment, regulatory framework
• Energy efficiency programmes – retrofit financing, green incentives
• Financial literacy – savings culture, investment education
• Tax policy reform – incentivise liquid savings alongside property investment

Strategic question for the market: Should Latvia follow the German rental-dominant model (50%+ tenants) or develop a hybrid approach?

04/08/2025

12/05/2024

С Dr. Reinis Tumovs - The Angel Investment – Меня только что признали одним из топовых поклонников! 🎉

15/09/2023

שנה טובה ומתוקה!5784
מאחלת לכולם שנה מלאת בברכה, אושר, בריאות, והצלחה.
שתזכו להגשים את כל החלומות שלכם עוד השנה . אמן ואמן

14/06/2023

Insight on how the world of is changing

Traditional payments methods still dominate the consumer payments landscape, survey from i.e cash, and cards. However, next-generation offerings are rapidly gaining shares such as:
🔸
🔸Account-to-account ( )
🔸Buy now, pay later ( ) are rapidly
🔸 with One
🔸Soon, machine-to-machine and payments.

👉 In , digital wallets like and is the leading payment type over and debit cards.

👉 In , cash is still queen followed by debit cards and credit cards.

👉 In North , debit cards take the crown followed by both cash and credit cards.

👉 In , cash also dominates followed by debit and credit cards.

This diversity of consumer preferences when it comes to payments is only beginning with (extremely popular in the ), A2A , and many other payment methods gaining strong momentum in very specific verticals and regions.

In order for merchants to connect with their consumers, accepting cash and is simply not enough anymore, especially in an innovative and complex region like APAC 😉

In-store, 69% of consumers still prefer to use credit cards as forms of payment. Every payment method has its perks, and consumers start to understand more and more the ones they would rather use:
🔸Methods that reduce Interest - Debit Cards, Cash, and Prepaid Cards
🔸Methods that reduce interest and offer convenience and control - A2A Payments & Bank Transfer.
🔸Methods that offer convenience and control - , , Check & .

Each one of those has a different appeal to different consumers. Delivering choice is more important than ever.

For small-tickets (

03/06/2023

's New Terms of Service Update Has Rugged Users About Taxes.

, a popular , recently updated its terms of service. The update included a new section about taxes, which has left some users confused about their tax responsibilities.

new section states that MetaMask users are responsible for paying all applicable taxes. However, it also says that MetaMask "reserves the right to withhold taxes where required." This has led some users to believe that MetaMask may start collecting taxes on behalf of users.

has clarified that it is not currently collecting taxes. However, the company says that it may do so in the future if required by law.

update to MetaMask's terms of service has caused some confusion and concern among users. It is important to note that MetaMask is a decentralized wallet, and users are ultimately responsible for their taxes. However, the new section about taxes does raise some questions about MetaMask's plans.

are some of the questions that users have about MetaMask's new tax :
• What taxes will MetaMask collect?
• How will MetaMask collect taxes?
• What will happen if I don't pay my to MetaMask?

has not yet answered all of these questions. However, the company says that it will provide more information in the coming weeks.

14/05/2023

04/05/2023

No sirds sveicu visus mūsu Neatkarības atjaunošanas dienā! 🇱🇻💫

31/01/2023

Have you ever thought about what happens when you buy something? In today’s (strange) world, even though purchases are (mostly) initiated by customers, it is predominantly suppliers and merchants driving the payment flow. Let’s take a look.

The modern landscape is dominated by pull payments, i.e. where the seller initiates the transfer. Cards are a typical example. But pulling money out of the customer’s – online or in-store – requires a complex chain of events routed through several intermediaries (gateways, card schemes, acquirers, issuers, processors, etc).

The set-up owes its complexity to decades-old and model limitations but the good is that credible alternatives exist. One of them is push payments, where the payer initiates the transaction, reversing completely the pull structure but taking advantage of (existing) rails. and have spotted the opportunity to use existing infrastructure in new ways by launching (competing) push offerings: Visa Direct and Mastercard Send.

To understand the potential and dynamics:

— Visa claimed back in 2016 that only in the US there is a $10 trillion push payments opportunity by means of facilitating use cases such as insurance payments, healthcare reimbursement, settlements or loan disbursements.

— The rise of the platform has fueled an increasing need from platforms and marketplaces to automate and simplify the process of handling and managing large payouts to different vendors and contractors. For example, Uber’s partnership with Mastercard (Send) has been facilitating payments across Rides, Uber Eats, Uber , and Uber for Business. Uber’s Instant Pay feature that allows drivers to receive their pay to their cards in real time, is estimated to have increased debit cards’ usage by 20%. Mastercard has recently announced similar agreements for payouts with and .

— Given the inherent inefficiencies of the cross-border payments landscape (expensive, slow, non-transparent), push-to-card is a fairly clever add-on in the landscape: Visa and Mastercard have partnered with many market-leading players in the field (i.e. Visa with , Mastercard with ) to launch an additional pay-out solution next to existing capabilities. Other examples include Visa’s recent partnership with Thunes to reach 1.5 billion across 44 countries and even the launch of a BaaS offering with Finastra that uses Visa Direct to offer faster cross-border payouts.

Push payments΄ reach, real-time capabilities, 24/7 availability and variety of use cases are positioning them at the of the rapidly evolving payments landscape. However, concerns such as limited for businesses and fraud , mean that the best approach is the one that employs a balanced mix with traditional pull scenarios.

Graphic sources: Visa, Mastercard
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Dr. 𝐑𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬 𝐓𝐔𝐌𝐎𝐕𝐒.
ORCID: 0000-0002-8946-2089

14/01/2023

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27/12/2022

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