The Malta Financial Services Authority is planning to set up an Education Consultation Council to supply more financial services professionals.
Outlining the MFSA's objectives highlighted in the strategic plan for the next three years, the authority's chairman, Joe Bannister, said yesterday that companies opening shop here required employees with enhanced skills.
Regular meetings, Prof. Bannister said, are to be held with guidance teachers and institutions providing further training and they will be invited to establish the council together with the MFSA.
The new strategic plan states that the ultimate aim in the development of human resources is to create a Centre for the Development of Competencies that would enable employees to enhance their skills beyond academic training.
As more local firms become international players, the MFSA needs to cooperate with regulatory enforcement agencies in other countries, an objective which the authority has placed high on its agenda for 2007-2009.
Another objective, Prof. Bannister explained, was to operate risk-based regulatory practices to better anticipate threats that could potentially harm companies and, ultimately, consumers.
By continuously upgrading technology to enhance its operational effectiveness and improve public access to the Registry of Companies and other information, the MFSA says it will streamline business processes and shed redundant systems and technologies.
Finance Ministry Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech said the financial services sector's contribution to the economy was growing by around 30 per cent annually.
As the country attracted more foreign investment in this sector, the regulator had an important role for the credibility of Maltese financial services which put the message through to investors that Malta was a serious jurisdiction.
From a legislative and regulatory point of view, the sector would not be where it is today had it not been for a number of critically important factors at play, not least the foresight that led to the laying of the foundations of a modern and sophisticated financial services sector, starting with the development of a dynamic regulatory environment, Mr Fenech said.