The Cypriots have only themselves to blame for the financial mess that their banks have got their country and depositors into. The writing was on the wall when the regulatory authorities allowed the domestic banks to accept deposits from questionable sources and to be over-dependent on these.

Such a nonchalant, even reckless, attitude was bound to court disaster. One reads with absolute amazement what a Cypriot bar owner in Limassol is reported to have told a correspondent of the Financial Times: “It doesn’t matter how they made their money, money laundering or whatever, it is the Russians who keep our economy going.”

We, in Malta, are fortunate that the core (long-established domestic) banks and the regulatory authorities are managed by people who have always kept well in mind the prime aim of maintaining Malta’s unenviable record of good financial management and strict anti-money laundering regulations.