WATCH | 'Successful 2025': All objectives achieved, says MFSA Chairman

MFSA Chairman Jesmond Gatt said that the financial services market continued to grow in 2025, with the number of people employed in the sector increasing, while maintaining stability and avoiding significant uncertainty.

“This sector remains one of the jurisdiction’s major successes and has garnered an excellent international reputation,” Gatt said. “This is of vital importance since the financial services sector does not service only Maltese citizens but is also involved in international markets and intrinsically linked to the European market and EU citizens.”

Gatt explained that the Authority’s main responsibility is to provide oversight to one of the country’s most important sectors – financial services. He noted that the sector is continiously evolving, with technology now playing a major part in delivering services to consumer.

“We focus on the operators in the sector in our supervisory role, and this too is changing as we partner with European counterparts, which makes our job more complicated and challenging,” he said.

Gatt said that in 2025, the number of licensed operators increased, and the MFSA is seeing a rise in the number of FinTech operators. Other sectors like insurance are also growing, with international and multi-national companies getting licensed in Malta.

Gatt explained that the key to the MFSA success in its supervisory role is the strong relationship it fosters with the operators. One key role of the MFSA is to boost and strengthen confidence in the sector, for both operators and consumers.

“First we clearly explain our reasons behind any new legislation through various outreach methods.We then carry out inspections on our operators to ensure they are compliant,” he said.

These inspections sometimes lead to the MFSA recommending some changes in operations, but may also identify infringements which might pose undue risk to consumers or other operators.

When asked about criticism of excessive bureaucracy and red-tape within the EU, Gatt said that every country in the EU has its own legislation and structures in place to safeguard its interests.

The EU countries also exist within a single market and any operator can choose to operate within any of the EU’s 27 jurisdictions.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, the EU set up a number of regulatory institutions which established how different jurisdictions work together to provide a cohesive approach to financial services regulation.

“This cannot be achieved overnight but we are slowly moving towards convergence, with many regulations already in their third or fourth cycles,” Gatt said. “But with so many countries involved, progress is sometimes slow.”

He added, however, that the EU itself recognised that, in order to be and remain competitive, it had to eliminate excessive legislative and administrative bureaucracy.

Gatt noted that Malta remains a leader in financial services regulation, often pioneering new legislation that is then adopted by other jurisdictions.

“We’ve seen this in the case of crypto, blockchain and new technology,   where Malta was among the first to introduce robust regulation,” he said.

Gatt said that In the coming years the MFSA will continue to renovate itself through the implementation of new structures as recently approved by parliament.

At the same time, the Authority will continue building its capacity through the implementation of digitalisation for the management of its internal process, enhanced customer interfaces and continued training of the officers.