Once again, Bank of Valletta is shortly about to embark on an investor education programme as it is now about to complete its first decade of such initiatives with this one curiously titled Learning To Make The Most Of Your Money.

Upon reflection and given the bank’s recent indiscretions, it would appear that this learning curve is directed at the BoV staff and how they can make the most of the customer’s money.

For the second consecutive year, I fail to note in the programme agenda any reference to what advice prospective investors may expect from the bank afforded in relation to when financial ventures fail and when investments don’t go as projected, planned or envisaged ,which surely is extremely apposite and relative, is it not?

However, I do note that one of their programmes is breathtakingly entitled Interest Rates And Their Effects On Your Deposits, which is vital if one is of very limited intelligence, let alone possessing any semblance or scintilla of basic financial acumen.

Nor does the bank provide any clarification on why these interest rates on deposits have remained static and rigid for a very long time and in direct disproportion – massively disparate, in fact – to the bank’s lending rates and never appear to head in a northerly direction, so to speak ,despite the European Central Bank recently twice raising the base interest rates in the preceding months.

Furthermore, also for the second year running, it should be noted that there is no involvement of one of the previously incumbent keynote participant speakers at such BoV seminars, this being the Malta Financial Services Authority’s consumer complaints manager, Geoffrey Bezzina. Nor why his presence was previously considered perfectly acceptable and reasonable at many of these BoV seminars.

One can only hazard a guess as to why such omissions occur but ones’s imagination may run riot when no justifiable explanation is forthcoming.