Author: Mel Chamber

The restoration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus reveals original light and gilded details through conservation by Prevarti, supported by HSBC Malta Foundation.

The Malta Society of Arts (MSA) has unveiled the restored Sacred Heart of Jesus (1943) by Maltese artist Anton Inglott (1915–1945), following a major conservation project carried out by Prevarti with the support of the HSBC Malta Foundation. The painting, which forms part of the MSA’s permanent collection, will now be on display in the Chapel at Palazzo de La Salle, the MSA’s historic seat in Valletta.

Painted on plywood during the Second World War, the work had suffered natural ageing and earlier restoration interventions. The conservation process involved meticulous cleaning and stabilisation, including the removal of discoloured varnish and accumulated surface deposits. This has allowed Inglott’s original colour palette and expressive treatment of light to re-emerge after decades of obscurity.

One of the most striking outcomes of the restoration is the renewed clarity of the light radiating from Jesus Christ’s heart – a bold and distinctly modern feature that reflects Inglott’s progressive approach to religious imagery at the time.

Research carried out during the project also revealed that the inscription beneath the painting had originally been gilded. The decorative frame was subsequently treated, and the gilding carefully reinstated using traditional techniques, restoring an important visual and symbolic detail. The painting’s physical restoration runs parallel to a complex history surrounding its original reception.

Inglott’s Sacred Heart of Jesus marked an important moment when it was donated to the MSA in 1943. It stirred immediate controversy due to the artist’s portrayal of Christ as a stylised and dark-skinned figure, and through the replacement of the heart with an abstract flood of light, which at the time was perceived as running counter to Catholic iconographic tradition.

The consecration ceremony was postponed indefinitely, and the painting was relegated to a storage space in the Society’s basement. Ultimately, Sacred Heart of Jesus was rejected in favour of a commission from Inglott’s close friend, Emvin Cremona (1919–1987), who painted a more literal, and therefore more conventional, version of the Sacred Heart. The two paintings are now on display in the MSA’s Chapel, facing each other, positioned symbolically at opposite ends of the space.

Eventually, Inglott’s Sacred Heart of Jesus was rediscovered by a new generation of researchers and curators, and has since come to be recognised as a masterpiece of Maltese modern art.

Speaking at the unveiling of the restored painting, H.E. Myriam Spiteri Debono, President of Malta, praised such preservation and conservation initiatives not only for safeguarding local artistic and historical heritage, but also because it reflects the development of art over the years and, in many instances, is a reflection of the development and evolvement of society itself. The various genres manifest the way in which artistic thought and licence, and the medium employed, in themselves signal the times of their creation. The painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, by artist Anton Inglott, and its history, illustrates this.

Reiterating the importance of the conservation of such artworks, Pierre Bugeja, Head of Restoration and Founder of Prevarti, remarked: “This restoration has allowed us to rediscover Inglott’s original artistic intent, particularly his innovative use of light. It represents an important step in preserving a significant work within Malta’s artistic and cultural heritage.”

“We would like to thank the Malta Society of Arts for the opportunity to contribute towards the restoration of this national project – a unique work of Maltese modern art housed within the Society’s historic Valletta premises,” said Manfred Galdes, Chairman of HSBC Bank Malta. “This initiative goes beyond conservation; it is an act of preserving a vital chapter of Malta’s modern cultural history. We are proud to have supported it and look forward to participating in similar projects in the future.”

Roderick Camilleri, Acting President of the Malta Society of Arts, added: “Anton Inglott’s work is a landmark of contemporary sacred art in Malta. Its restoration and renewed presentation reaffirm the Society’s ongoing commitment to cultural stewardship and to safeguarding our artistic legacy for future generations.”

Today, Sacred Heart of Jesus can once again be experienced by the public, following a restoration that safeguards both its material integrity and artistic significance.

Behind every life insurance claim is a person or a family facing an unexpected and often difficult moment. In 2025, HSBC Life Malta once again stood by its policyholders, paying out more than 95% of assessed claims for the fourth consecutive year, reinforcing its commitment to supporting customers when they need it most.

This result is not about a single year, but about an ongoing commitment to supporting customers at the moments when protection truly comes into play. It reflects a consistent approach to claims handling built on fairness, clarity and care.

Commenting on the company’s continued performance, HSBC Life Malta CEO Gregory Inglott highlighted 2025 was a very good year. Our existing customers continued to show their trust in our insurance company whilst new customers sought our solutions. I am very pleased we are able to continue repaying that trust. 

The 2025 claims experience spans individual protection solutions such as the Loan Protector Plan and the Personal Protector Plan, which support families with home loan and personal protection, as well as the Group Life Plan, which provides financial security to employees and their families through employer-sponsored cover.

Josef Camilleri, Head of Products & Distribution at HSBC Life Malta, emphasised that outcomes at claim stage are what ultimately define the value of life insurance.

“When people take out life insurance, they are preparing for situations they hope they will never face. Our responsibility is to respond with care, efficiency and fairness if those moments do arise. Life insurance is about peace of mind, knowing that support will be there if it is ever needed. A strong and consistent claims record helps turn that promise into something real for families and businesses.”

By continuing to deliver dependable claims outcomes year after year, HSBC Life Malta reaffirms its role as a trusted life insurance provider in Malta, focused not just on offering policies and products, but on people, and on being there when it matters most.

Most organisations don’t struggle with continuous improvement because they lack ambition. They struggle because they try to simplify something that is inherently complex.

Kaizen is often introduced as a method, a toolkit, or a structured improvement program. Leaders are encouraged to adopt new practices, deploy new metrics, and roll out new initiatives—often with the best intentions. Yet over time, many of these efforts lose momentum. Improvement becomes episodic. Engagement fades. Results plateau.

This is not a failure of Kaizen. It is a failure to understand it.

At its core, Kaizen is built on a set of paradoxes that leaders must learn to hold simultaneously. These paradoxes are not contradictions to be resolved; they are tensions to be managed. The Kaizen Culture Paradox explores these ideas directly—and this upcoming event is designed to bring them to life through a keynote and live conversation with the author and the audience.

Practice Over Tools

One of the most common misconceptions about Kaizen is that it is driven by tools. In reality, tools are secondary. What sustains improvement over time is practice: the daily behaviours, routines, and habits that shape how people think about problems and act on them.

Organisations that focus too heavily on tools often see early enthusiasm followed by decline. Without consistent practice, tools become rituals—performed because they are required, not because they create learning. Kaizen cultures reverse this logic. They focus first on how people practice problem-solving, reflection, and experimentation. Tools then serve the practice, not the other way around.

Small Is Not the Only Kaizen

Kaizen is widely associated with small, incremental improvements—and rightly so. Small changes compound. They are practical, low-risk, and accessible to everyone. But small improvements alone are not enough.

Kaizen also supports larger shifts in direction, thinking, and capability. The paradox is that meaningful transformation rarely comes from dramatic interventions. Instead, it emerges when small improvements are aligned to a shared purpose and reinforced over time. Kaizen teaches organisations how to balance patience with ambition—building momentum without losing direction.

Efficiency Begins With Flow

Many organisations pursue efficiency by optimising individual tasks, departments, or metrics. Kaizen challenges this approach by shifting attention to flow—the movement of value from start to finish.
Local efficiency can improve isolated results while harming the system as a whole. Work queues grow. Handoffs slow down. Problems remain hidden between functions. By focusing on flow, Kaizen exposes constraints, delays, and waste that efficiency thinking alone often misses. Improvement begins not with working harder, but with enabling value to move smoothly through the organisation.

Standardize to Improve

Standardisation is often misunderstood as rigid control. In Kaizen, it serves a very different purpose.
Standards capture the current best-known way of working. They create stability, visibility, and a shared reference point. Without standards, there is no baseline for learning—only variation and opinion. The paradox is that standardisation does not limit improvement; it makes improvement possible.

In Kaizen cultures, standards are living agreements, not fixed rules. They are expected to change as learning occurs. Leaders play a critical role here: treating standards as temporary truths encourages experimentation, while treating them as permanent rules shuts learning down.

Kaizen Is More Than Operations

Although Kaizen has strong roots in operations, its impact extends far beyond the shop floor. Over time, it shapes leadership behaviour, decision-making, and organisational culture.
Kaizen influences how meetings are run, how problems are discussed, how performance is reviewed, and how people are developed. It affects how organisations respond to uncertainty and how they balance short-term pressure with long-term capability. Seen this way, Kaizen is not an operational initiative—it is an organisational mindset.

Kaizen Is a Meta-Strategy

Rather than competing with strategy, Kaizen enables it.

As a meta-strategy, Kaizen provides a consistent way to translate strategic intent into everyday action. It aligns execution with learning. Instead of relying on periodic transformation programs, organisations use Kaizen to adapt continuously—testing ideas, learning from results, and adjusting course.

This approach reduces dependence on large-scale change efforts and builds internal capability to improve from within. Strategy becomes something that evolves through practice, not something that is imposed and revisited only when performance declines.

Kaizen Is the Smartest Way to Run a Business

Taken together, these paradoxes point to a broader truth: Kaizen is not a technique for improvement—it is a way of running an organisation.

It builds resilience by developing people’s ability to see problems early and respond thoughtfully. It improves performance by focusing on systems rather than symptoms. And it sustains results by embedding learning into daily work.

This is why organisations that truly embrace Kaizen do not rely on constant reinvention. They improve steadily, adapt consistently, and compound gains over time.

An Invitation to Think Differently

This event brings these seven paradoxes together through a keynote presentation and an open conversation with the author and the audience. It is designed for leaders who want to move beyond surface-level adoption and explore what Kaizen really demands in practice.

Participants will gain:

– A clearer understanding of why many improvement efforts stall despite good intentions
– Insight into how the seven paradoxes show up in everyday leadership decisions
– A deeper appreciation of Kaizen as a cultural and strategic system
– The opportunity to engage directly, ask questions, and challenge assumptions

This is not a training session or a methodology overview. It is a leadership conversation about how improvement actually works—and why embracing paradox is essential to making it last.

Join us for this keynote and live conversation around The Kaizen Culture Paradox and rethink what continuous improvement means for your organisation.

If improvement is truly a priority, this is a conversation worth investing time in

Following the successful BOV Visa Spend and Win competition, Bank of Valletta today announced the three competition winners who will be travelling to Italy this month to experience the magic of the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. What started out as a simple daily gesture to use Visa cards for everyday spending has now turned into a once-in-a-lifetime experience for these customers, thanks to Visa.

After weeks of anticipation, the winning BOV Visa Cardholders have been confirmed. Sylvana Zarb Darmanin has been awarded the first prize, securing an all-inclusive experience for two to the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. Frank Cassar has been named the second prize winner, while Ellissa Bouzguenda has claimed third prize. Prizes were handed out during a presentation event hosted by Chris Degabriele, Head of eBanking at the Bank. Present also for the occasion were representatives from Visa, and the Bank’s Marketing and Product Lifecycle Management team.

Speaking during the presentation, Chris Degabriele said, “This occasion is a wonderful reminder of how simple choices we make, like using a BOV Visa Card for everyday purchases, can lead to extraordinary rewards. This spend and win competition is an opportunity to celebrate the loyalty of our customers while reinforcing the value of opting for smart, secure, and convenient payment methods like digital and physical payments in an increasingly fast-paced world. Congratulations to all three winners and a word of thanks to Visa for a collaboration that continues to add real value to our customers.”

Launched in collaboration with Visa, the sweepstake focused on BOV Visa Cardholders who regularly use their BOV Visa cards or digital wallets to carry out daily purchases. These customers have registered their interest in participation and consequently then entered into a draw with the final rewards being a unique experience at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. The prize packages include flights, accommodation, transfers, and access to the electric atmosphere of the Olympic Winter Games, where the world’s top athletes will compete on snow and ice across some of Italy’s most iconic alpine venues. From the thrill of the slopes to the spectacle of world-class competition, the winners are set to enjoy a sporting celebration like no other.

Launched in March 2024, Bank of Valletta’s volunteering programme continues to grow , reaching a new milestone in 2025. BOV employees contributed 5,000+ volunteering hours, with 645 employees taking part across 68 initiatives, marking a 47% increase in participation compared to 2024. They supported several NGOs working across social and environmental sectors.

Across the programme, colleagues rolled up their sleeves for practical, hands-on support. In 2025, teams volunteered at the Soup Kitchen, helping with meal preparation and serving meals to guests. Others supported Caritas through practical maintenance work that improved shared outdoor spaces for residents. BOV volunteering also extended to long-standing national community initiatives, including the L-Istrina BOV Piggy Bank Campaign, where colleagues volunteer their time to support the coin counting process, helping bring the campaign to its final stages. Teams also contributed their support to NGOs like Puttinu Cares, reflecting the programme’s reach across different community needs.

These efforts form part of the Bank’s wider Corporate Social Responsibility programme, through which NGOs are invited to benefit from practical, hands-on support from Bank volunteers. Community partners have continued to respond strongly, welcoming support that helps advance their day-to-day work and mission.

Beyond the impact delivered in the community, the programme strengthens the Bank’s culture by bringing colleagues together across different functions and roles around a shared purpose, whilst promoting empathy, inclusion, and social responsibility.

Speaking about these initiatives, Ernest Agius, Chief Operations Officer, explained, “ESG becomes real when you can see it in action. Volunteering gives our colleagues the chance to step into the community and support organisations doing vital work every day. It builds relationships outside the Bank with our communities.”

Ray Debattista, Chief People & Culture Officer, added, “By creating space for colleagues to volunteer, we’re investing in social sustainability, whilst remaining true to our value of inclusion, and giving our people scope for personal growth. The continued rise in participation shows that our people want to be part of real impact, and that matters for the communities we serve and for the culture we are building.”

Looking ahead, the Bank will continue building on this momentum with community partners, supporting meaningful volunteering opportunities aligned with the Bank’s ESG priorities and delivering tangible value where it is needed most.

Bank of Valletta has officially inaugurated its new Investment Centre on Tower Road in Tas-Sliema. This new Centre, which has been relocated from Gżira, reflects the Bank’s ongoing commitment to improve its investment services and provide customers with a modern, accessible, and customer‑focused environment.

The new state-of-the-art premises were inaugurated during an official opening ceremony presided over by Bank of Valletta Chairperson Dr Gordon Cordina and Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Farrugia. In their remarks, both emphasised that, since their launch in 2012, BOV’s Investment Centres have been instrumental to the Bank’s growth and continued development. This approach reflects the Bank’s commitment to be customer-centric and to provide its customers with personal attention in a refreshed environment conducive to the highest level of personalised banking.

BOV CEO, Kenneth Farrugia, remarked, “The Sliema Investment Centre has been designed to provide an improved experience for customers seeking personalised investment advice and specialised financial solutions, including a growing suite of sustainable investment options that support long‑term value creation. In developing this new centre, we also gave careful consideration to the use of environmentally responsible materials, reflecting our commitment to operate in a more sustainable manner. We continue transforming our customer service experience to ensure we remain relevant to the requirements of our customers, irrespective of their lifecycle stage.”

Dr Gordon Cordina, BOV Chairperson, echoed the CEO’s remarks, adding that “2026 marks a foundational year that will shape the Bank for the coming years. Every decision the Bank makes today is an investment in a future where we’ll work to remain strong, relevant, and innovative.”

The Sliema Investment Centre, which serves around 8,000 customers, was inaugurated in the presence of Chief Personal and Wealth Officer Simon Azzopardi, Chief Operations Officer Ernest Agius, the Manager of the Sliema Investment Centre Sharon Pollacco and the Head of Prestige Client Network Roberta Bellizzi.

Besides the Sliema Investment Centre, Bank of Valletta operates four other Investment Centres located in Bir id-Deheb, Mosta, Gozo and Ħal Qormi. The Qormi Investment Centre has been temporarily relocated to Marsa due to refurbishment works. Every Centre is staffed by a dedicated team of qualified investment advisers, supported by a specialised team within Wealth Management, ensuring they receive timely market insights and trend analysis to deliver informed, strategic advice to clients.

HSBC Bank Malta has launched its 2026 Start of Year Campaign, a coordinated series of customer focused initiatives aimed at delivering enhanced value to customers. Running until 30 April 2026, the campaign spans Wealth, Personal lending and Insurance, with the objective of maintaining a strong and responsible market presence while supporting customers through competitive offers on their personal banking, Wealth and Insurance needs.

“Our priority remains clear, supporting our customers, strengthening relationships, and delivering value in a sustainable and responsible way,” said Muriel Rutland, Head of International Wealth and Premier Banking at HSBC Bank Malta. “This campaign is a testament to our commitment to doing that in ways that are both practical and meaningful for our customers.”

Wealth Investments Offer
A headline initiative is the 0% initial fee offer on all mutual fund investments, available through HSBC’s Accredited Financial Advisors and Premier Relationship Managers. The offer which is valid until 30 April 2026 is designed to give investors a cost-effective entry into professionally managed funds, with no exit fees and access to personalised financial planning support.

The campaign is being supported by an advertising rollout featuring HSBC’s team of Wealth advisors, as well as targeted activity online.

Four tailored email campaigns will also promote specific wealth solutions including pensions, regular premium products and Key 5 Critical Illness Protection.

Discounted Personal Lending Rates
Customers can benefit from discounted interest rates across all personal loan products. Rates are discounted by up to 1.75% depending on the loan purpose and customer segment, with the most competitive options starting at 3.25%* for loans related to energy efficiency and electric vehicles.

Our best mortgage offer in years with fast turnaround times and expert assistance, reinforcing the bank’s support to customers to invest in property.

Cashback on Home Loan Buildings Insurance
To complement its mortgage offering, HSBC Malta is also providing a cashback incentive on new Home Loan Buildings Insurance policies issued until the end of April, whereby customers will benefit from this one time-offer in receiving back 15% of the first annual premium. This offer is aimed at providing added value while supporting customers’ protection needs.

A Focus on Relationship-Led Banking
Beyond the campaign’s headline offers and the standard point of sale messages, HSBC is continuing its year-round customer engagement activities, ensuring customer relationships are nurtured with relevant, timely and tailored communication. The approach is designed to engage customers throughout the relationship lifecycle and includes educational content such as fraud avoidance tips and personalised needs-based messaging.