The news that the Central Bank has uploaded on its website the aggregated balance sheets of all banking institutions (The Sunday Times, January 12) is most welcome.

This surely complements, for the investing public, the published balance sheets of the banks quoted on the Malta Stock Exchange which print their accounts for their annual general meetings. Of interest too, I am sure, will be the published figures of the banks’ loans outstanding by economic activity.

Investors and shareholders, seeing what has been the fate of other shareholders in banks abroad, cannot be complacent and must use all available information to safeguard their portfolios, for external auditing exercises give only a measure of peace of mind, more so given that the local top audit firms seem to have a permanent hold in some listed companies, despite the objections, year in year out, of many, including myself.