Malta has witnessed a rapid growth in the number of domiciled funds in the past year with a 65 per cent increase last year, pushing the tally to over 700, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech said.

Speaking during the inauguration of Fexserv Financial Services Offices at Alpine House, San Gwann, Mr Fenech said 75 per cent of funds domiciled in Malta now sourced their fund administration services locally.

"This means that the financial services sector is not only an important pillar of investment but also a source of quality job generation.

"It is a testament to the quality that our human resources are able to offer."

Mr Fenech said that Fexserv's investment reflected the trust the company and the people behind had have in Malta's economy, "an investment which is improving the quality of work of its 32 employees and the customers that make use of it the company's services".

"This is another success story of the Maltese financial service industry: this success is being recognised on an international level. The World Economic Forum recently remarked the advantages and the substantial progress that took place in financial services over the past years and ranked Malta 15th in the world in terms of the level of development of the financial services sectors, practically within the same benchmark levels of established jurisdictions as Singapore, Switzerland and Luxembourg."

The minister warned that "we need to remain vigilant at all levels, whether at government and regulatory level but this is also my appeal to our financial institutions and every practitioner.

"We have worked hard to achieve stability and investor confidence – we are very proud of this and we have to work even harder to safeguard this reputation."

Alpine Group COO Lawrence Buttigieg said the company had started as a currency exchange bureau and now offered a full suite of financial services.

Its ongoing investment and focus in financial services followed government policy and commitment to grow this sector.

He said the company's newly refurbished offices reflected the spirit and philosophy of the group - modern and fresh, critical qualities for a group which needed to keep innovative and constantly in search of new opportunities in any industry, particularly within the continuously changing financial services sector.