Bank of Valletta is today finalising the last-minute arrangements so that, for all of this week, it will be providing its services to the CHOGM delegates from the main venues that will be in the media spotlight, namely the CHOGM Media Centre, the Westin Dragonara Resort and the Radisson SAS Golden Sands Resort.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting will be held at the Golden Sands between Friday and Sunday.

Preparations for the provision of these services were wide ranging and have involved months of planning and co-ordination. Immediately as BoV was appointed the CHOGM official bank, dedicated resources were mobilised to ensure that the bank would be totally supportive and play an active role in the national effort to make this unique event a success.

Over the past months, BoV has played a leading role in the national promotional campaign leading up to CHOGM. The promotional banners that are embellishing Malta's major traffic thoroughfares are an innovative aspect of the campaign and have attracted wide-ranging positive feedback.

Adverts on bus shelters and promotional messages on BoV's ATMs have also contributed towards this national awareness campaign, as have the CHOGM commemorative bookmarks printed by the bank. These were distributed to all students last week in an effort to engage the schoolchildren to appreciate the importance of this international event.

During CHOGM week, BoV's focus will now be on providing a seamless banking service to all the delegates participating in CHOGM and the related fora, as well as to the large contingent of accredited journalists that will be making use of the facilities of the CHOGM Media Centre.

The preparations to arrive at this final stage were extensive and have necessitated the input of a dedicated team of over a hundred BoV employees. Apart from the employees who will actually be providing the banking services at the CHOGM venues, this operation has involved the input of a team of people that has mapped out logistics, a team that has maintained ongoing liaison with the CHOGM Task Force and an IT and communications team that is responsible for setting up the bank's IT and network infrastructure requirements at the three venues where BoV will be offering its services.

The bank's sales and marketing division was entrusted with setting up the areas from where BoV will be operating with the appropriate signage to direct the delegates. Concurrently, another team has handled the deployment of BoV ATMs at the CHOGM Media Centre and the Radisson SAS Golden Sands.

As the CHOGM official bank, BoV will be offering exclusive banking services at the CHOGM venues. The bank's customer service officials at all venues will also be offering foreign exchanges services to delegates.

Apart from having its ATMs to service delegates, all the BoV service points will also have EPOS terminals to further support the provision of a straightforward, efficient service.

On the peak days of the CHOGM activities, BoV will be manning its service points on an extended schedule, between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. The bank will also be providing 24-hour technical and IT support to these three CHOGM banking service points.

In a comment to The Sunday Times, Tonio Depasquale, chief executive officer at Bank of Valletta, said: "We are proud to be the CHOGM Official Bank.

"This appointment shows that we were the first bank to recognise the unique value, both from an economic as well as from a social, cultural and historical perspective that the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting has for our country.

"We are now focused on providing banking services at the CHOGM venues to give our full support to all CHOGM delegates."

Mr Depasquale also spoke of the close collaboration and co-operation that has characterised the relationship between BoV and the CHOGM Task Force over the past months.

"The BoV team and the CHOGM Task Force have worked together in a highly professional manner and have been guided by one common objective - that of ensuring that the whole country will take full advantage of the opportunities that will emanate from this event," Mr Depasquale said.

"By being supportive towards CHOGM, we are once again putting our business credo into practice - indeed, the slogan 'Your success, our goal' could not be more appropriate - our support is directed at helping make CHOGM a success for Malta and the Maltese people, and that is why we are putting all our weight behind the organisers of this event as the CHOGM official bank."

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