Midsea Books Ltd have launched Carlo Farrugia's Dictionary for Financial Services at the Malta Financial Services Authority in Mriehel. The dictionary, an important lexicographic tool for the Maltese-speaking community, contains terms used by officers in banks, brokerages, insurance companies, the stock exchange and investment banks.

Pawlu Mizzi, director of Midsea Books, explained that specialised reference books like this Dictionary for Financial Services are indispensable for the users of the Maltese language.

Because of financial legislation, they have become even more important. Surely, our language would be poorer without them since Malta's entry into the EU.

Dr Charles Briffa said: "like that of most other modern disciplines, the vocabulary of financial services moves rapidly forward and compilers who treat 'financial services' as an umbrella market segmentation term, need to keep pace with current changes in this large category of industries."

For this reason he hoped that those involved in finance industries - particularly translators and broadcasters - would find it "a useful linguistic tool".

The dictionary's author, Carlo Farrugia, studied at the Maastricht School of Management and is a graduate in General Management. He worked at the Central Bank of Malta and later at the Malta Financial Service Authority. He is now head of Information Services in the MFSA.

Compiling the dictionary, he said, was no small job. It cost him more than a year's research. However, he is proud his work will be of benefit to many others and, as other speakers suggested, he promised to update the dictionary periodically to keep up with changing times.

Mr Farrugia thanked his publishers and Dr Briffa and presented Mr J. Demanuele, vice-chairman of MFSA, a copy of the dictionary.