Winston V. Zahra appointed chairman of Volksbank Malta

Volksbank Malta Ltd appointed Winston V. Zahra as chairman during its AGM on Wednesday.

Mr Zahra, a qualified teacher, has been successfully involved in various aspects of Maltese tourism for almost 40 years and was involved as a board member in organisations such as the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, the Malta Tourism Authority and the MCESD.

Mr Zahra is group managing director of Island Hotels Group, which incorporates the Bugibba Holiday Complex, the Coastline Hotel, the Radisson Bay Point Resort, the Radisson Golden Sands Resort and Spa as well as Island Caterers.

He is chairman of the Dragonara Casino, a director of various other companies, a board member of Caritas and sits on the Council of the University of Malta.

"For Volksbank Malta Limited, the appointment of Mr Zahra as chairman is a very important step in the reorganisation of the bank," managing director Herbert Skok said. "Having just finished an extensive refurbishment programme, Volksbank is now going through a phase of internal restructuring, focused on improving the bank's service to its customers.

"Although the bank has been offering local business since November 2002, we now want to concentrate more on the Maltese market."

Volksbank Malta, a subsidiary of Österreichische Volksbanken AG in Vienna, forms part of a network of over 600 Volksbank branches in Austria. In Central and Eastern Europe, the group has an additional network of 240 branches in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and the Ukraine.