My, my! ‘Bank lending rates not a major concern for firms’ (March 12). I should jolly well hope so.

What would journalists have said had they were living in some era when, in Malta, the lowest rate of overdraft or loan from local banks was to the tune of not less than eight per cent?

And what’s this mindset that because the ECB’s rate has been brought down to 0.25 per cent, then all Malta’s banks are expected to toe that EU policy plan? Let’s stop talking rubbish. Let’s simply accept that every country has its own particular banking set-up and models in line with its own financial and economic fundamentals; (in Malta our banks being perennially flush with deposits and no real existence of a keenly operative inter-bank market as such), and beyond that simply stop the whimpering.

Why does anyone think that HSBC came to Malta and bought out (at a giveaway price) the country’s best managed and most profitable bank? They knew that this was (along with the other local banks) a deposits-generating machine that reflected the Maltese workers’ and families’ high sense of prudence and, therefore, they would have cheap funding available to on-lend and invest, both in Malta and elsewhere.

And the simple fact that there are now so many other banks in Malta offering more attractive deposit rates is indicative of attempts at chipping away into that deposits base.

Several individuals, businesses and company treasurers have indeed become masters at earning for their deposits much better interest rates than the two big banks are offering.

Malta has its own particular banking model. It is a good one and has served, and is serving, the country well and no journalist, businessman or other EU whippersnapper should ever dream or expect us to fit into some EU ‘one-size-fits-all’ straitjacket.