New book on history of banking in Malta

The book History Of Banking In Malta, by retired banker and university lecturer John Consiglio, was launched yesterday at the Foundation for International Studies.

It is the fruit of almost half a century of "unconscious" work since he joined the profession in 1958 and about 30 years of solid research.

Dr Consiglio works from a study that is more like a "jungle" - and among the mounds of papers are numerous banking history books.

"When you examine those of other countries, or specific banking institutions, you inevitably make comparisons and wonder why Malta's is not on record.

"Then, if you are keen, or mad enough to tackle the task, you go for it. And I have been going for it for many years... I was just writing and would have gone on forever."

In fact, if Dr Consiglio had not been advised by a friend to draw the line somewhere and have a cut-off point, he would not have stopped at 2005.

"The more you dig, the more you find there is worth digging for. It's addictive!"

Published by Progress Press, the book is of 314 pages, divided into 12 chapters. It is not technical, but an easy read, maintains the author, who even travelled outside Malta to research it.

"Sometimes, I get the impression, from what I read, that people think banking started in 1994," he said. But History of Banking in Malta sets that record straight, spanning a period between 1506 and 2005.

It may not be as long as that of Italy, France and the UK, but Malta boasted some excellent "unsung" bankers, and the book makes up for that too.

"If today's banking sector is strong, innovative and forward-looking, it is because it has a long tradition of solid institutions, capable banking personalities and events that molded it in the right way," said Dr Consiglio.

"If we exercise a comparison between what we have now and what other countries are trying to do, we kick off from a better position. Our history was not always a case of up and up, but we did things in a better way than other countries, which were trying to build their financial services sector".

The launch of the book was chaired by Institution of Financial Services president Joe Abdilla, while Carmel Vassallo from the Mediterranean Institute of the university and Roderick Pace from the European Documentation Research Centre gave their impressions of it.

Present at the launch were bankers, academics, Allied Newspapers Ltd directors, melitensia collectors, those interested in Maltese history in general and in banking history as a discipline of its own - "which it certainly is!"