Small investors need more protection

While bank deposits are guaranteed up to €100,000, if I am not mistaken, I am in doubt whether bank or other company bonds, even those listed on the Malta Stock Exchange, have the same safeguards and guarantees.

So one of the disadvantages of an ECB-wide low interest rate is to encourage many small savers to divert their investments from guaranteed safeguarded bank deposits into slightly higher interest paying bonds which are again flooding the market.

While entrepreneurs going into business know that they have to face risks, which they try to control, limit and mitigate, what can the citizen investor really do to make sure that his investment is being committed into a sound enterprise and hopefully an ethical one? Very little, which is why despite hating red tape and bureaucracy I look upon EU-wide legislation as necessary to safeguard the common citizen investor.

Hopefully the recently-elected Maltese MEPs, whom I congratulate, could go a little into this matter and lend their support to any upcoming directive further safeguarding investors' rights, militating for more transparency and obligatory disclosure, as well as outlining what conflicts of interest are not permissible, such as board members not remaining customarily silent by lobbying regularly in the media or other practices one can look askance at, especially relevant in a small country such as ours.