FinanceMalta To Host Its 15th Annual Conference

The theme of this year’s conference reflects the challenges that the sector has gone through, and still is going through, in Malta as well as in other jurisdictions.

The 15th FinanceMalta Annual Conference entitled “Learning from the past: Looking to the Future” will be held on 1 December 2022 at the Intercontinental Arena Conference Centre. This will be the first fully in-person and face-to-face annual conference to be organised since the pandemic and is considered to be the largest local gathering for the financial services industry.
The conference will feature C-level executives from Malta and abroad, European Union policymakers, Maltese Government representatives, officials of global standard-setting organisations, renowned academics, researchers and more.

The theme of this year’s conference reflects the challenges that the sector has gone through, and still is going through, in Malta as well as in other jurisdictions. These include the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the FATF grey listing and eventual white listing, the Russia-Ukraine war and the rapid increase in inflation and cost of living. FinanceMalta’s event will focus on the lessons learnt but also will take a look forward and see how, collectively, Malta can continue to seize the opportunities for growth in financial services, amidst an ever-changing economic and regulatory environment.

FinanceMalta’s Chairman George Vella said: “It feels good to host once again, in a face-to-face format, our annual conference. It will be a great opportunity to analyse what has been another unprecedented year and, most importantly, to look into the opportunities for 2023 and beyond. We will do this with a line-up of excellent speakers and we look forward to providing, once again, a platform to discuss the future of the Maltese financial services industry.”

The annual conference will feature prominent keynote speakers from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the London School of Economics (LSE) Law School and more. Malta’s Prime Minister Robert Abela and the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola will be addressing the conference. The event will be chaired by Deborah Webster.

The annual conference will be opened by FinanceMalta’s Chairman, and the first panel session will be titled “A look at our lessons and achievements in 2022”. Ms Webster will moderate the panel discussion, which will include Dr. Helga Buttigieg Debono, Executive Head, National Coordinating Committee on Combating Money Laundering & Funding of Terrorism (NCC), the MFSA, the Director of the FIAU Kenneth Farrugia and MBR CEO Geraldine Spiteri Lucas as panellists.

Plans for the financial services industry for 2023 and beyond will be the main theme of a live panel session moderated by the Malta Chamber Chairperson Marisa Xuereb. Panellists for this session include Malta Financial Services Advisory Council Chairman Joseph Zammit Tabona, Economist Gordon Cordina and Institute of Financial Services Practitioners President Tonio Zarb.

Banking in Malta in the context of European regulatory developments will take centre stage in a panel session that will include Fabio Axisa, Chairman of the Banking and Payments working group within the MFSAC’s Action Committee; MBA Chairman Marcel Cassar; and MFSA’s Head of Supervision David Eacott.

In the afternoon, the focus will shift on to Sustainable Finance. A fireside chat will take place which will be moderated by financial consultant Steve Ellul, with the participation of Professor Andreas Hoepner and Gabriella Borda, Co-Founder Avvena – Sustainability and Decarbonisation Advisor.

The annual conference will then discuss Good Governance. Trust in the reliability of the financial system is crucial in order to contribute to the proper functioning of the economy and good governance is a prerequisite to build such trust. This theme will be debated in a panel session facilitated by Therisa Mallia, Lead, Policy, Advisory & Training, Anti-Financial Crime Department at Bank of Valletta. She will be joined by Carmine Di Noia, Director of the OECD’s Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs; FATF President for 2020-2022 Marcus Pleyer; and Manfred Galdes, Managing Partner at ARQ Malta.

The conference will also delve into the topic of Digital Revolution and Digital Finance. The adoption of the European Commission’s digital finance package which includes a digital finance strategy, legislative proposals on crypto-assets and digital resilience, as well as a renewed retail payments strategy, will be discussed during this session. A fireside chat on these themes will be led by Wayne Pisani, Chairman of the Regulated Business Subcommittee at IFSP, who will be joined by Dr Phillip Paech, Associate Professor of Law at LSE Law School as well as GTG Advocates Managing Director Ian Gauci.

The closing session of FinanceMalta’s 15th Annual Conference will delve into how the sector can attract and develop talent, upskill and reskill the workforce, as well as retain existing talent. The final panel session for the day, moderated by Talent Advisor and Headhunter Fran Moisa, will include Matthew Vella, Permanent Secretary for the Ministry for Education, Sport, Youth, Research and Innovation; Identity Malta CEO Mark Mallia; Director of the Institute of Business Management and Commerce at MCAST Andrew Galea; and the Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Management & Accountancy at the University of Malta, Emanuel Said.

A networking event for delegates and speakers will be held on the eve of the annual conference, on 30 November, at the Magazino Hall in Valletta. The annual conference of FinanceMalta also offers the possibility to companies to increase their visibility through a number of sponsorship packages. For more information on the FinanceMalta Annual Conference, sponsorship opportunities as well as to register and benefit from the early bird offers, visit https://www.fmannualconference.org/