By Alison Micallef, Chief Executive Officer, Malta Development Bank Malta’s changing climate is placing greater demands on our buildings. Longer heatwaves and growing pressure on energy systems are changing how buildings need to perform. These conditions have direct implications for architects, engineers, and everyone involved in shaping the built environment. Upgrading Malta’s existing building stock must become a central part of our sustainability agenda. We live in a dense

Elena Tabone, Deputy Director at Malta's Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU), has set out how the country is preparing for a wave of upcoming EU anti-money laundering reforms, in a wide-ranging interview with Compliance Week. With the European Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) due to be fully operational by 2028, new EU regulations coming into force in summer 2027, and a MONEYVAL evaluation on the horizon, Tabone said the FIAU's current focus is contributing data

Received (in revised form) on 25th January 2025 Journal of Financial Supervisors Academy Volume I. Financial regulation is only as effective as the people and institutions behind it. Rules, frameworks and supervisory mandates depend, ultimately, on a consistent supply of skilled professionals equipped with the knowledge to apply them. It is this foundational relationship – between regulatory capacity and academic expertise – that forms the subject of a new paper by Prof. Eman

Published (in revised form) on 11th October 2024 for the Journal of Financial Supervisors Academy Volume I. Supervisory independence - the ability of financial regulators to make decisions free from political interference, industry pressure, and conflicts of interest - is widely recognised as a cornerstone of effective financial oversight. Yet ensuring it in practice has proven more complex than simply legislating for it. Following the 2019 review of the European Supervisory

Published in Journal of Financial Supervisors Academy Volume I, September 2025. Equity markets have weathered no shortage of turbulence in recent years, yet the volatility seen at the surface is too often mistaken for instability at the foundations. In his contribution to Volume I of the Journal of Financial Supervisors Academy (JFSA), Richard Metcalfe, Head of Regulatory Affairs at the World Federation of Exchanges, makes the case that capital markets deserve more credit tha

Written by Matthew Scicluna, Head of Financial Crime Compliance Malta’s financial services sector, characterised by both its strong domestic foundation and international reach, has undergone significant transformation in recent years. This evolution has been driven by changing regulatory frameworks at both local and global levels, geopolitical developments, and the emergence of new and increasingly sophisticated criminal typologies. A particularly concerning development has b

Published (in revised form) on 3rd April 2025 in Journal of Financial Supervisors Academy Volume I. For decades, Europe has grappled with a persistent structural challenge: its capital markets have consistently underperformed relative to their potential. Joe Heavey, now Team Lead for International and Institutional Affairs at the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) - who held the role of Senior Officer at the time of writing - traces the long arc of EU capital ma

Received (in revised form) on 11th October 2024 for the Journal of Financial Supervisors Academy Volume I. Professor Pierre-Henri Conac’s article, The Capital Markets Union: What Will It Take To Be A Success, published in Volume I of the Journal of Financial Supervisors Academy, offers a timely and measured assessment of the European Union’s decade-long effort to build a genuine Capital Markets Union (CMU). Launched in 2014, the CMU aimed to deepen cross-border capital market