Leading officials and practitioners from Malta’s financial services sector gathered in London’s Stock Exchange today to speak at a packed conference promoting the benefits of Malta as a regional financial centre.

Titled Financial Services in Malta: Where Opportunities Become Realities, was hosted by Financial Times Global Events and sponsored by FinanceMalta. Around 140 delegates came from a broad cross-section of leading banks, asset managers, regulatory bodies, accountancy firms and other representatives of the UK financial community.

Attendees heard presentations from Finance Minister Tonio Fenech, FinanceMalta chairman Joseph Zammit Tabona, Central Bank governor Michael C. Bonello, and Malta Financial Services Authority chairman Joe Bannister.

Mr Fenech’s outlined Malta’s attributes as a financial services centre, highlighting benefits such as a skilled and flexible, multilingual labour force, an efficient fiscal and regulatory regime and top quality ICT infrastructure. Mr Bonello explained how the international financial crisis had only a limited impact on Malta’s banking sector, and that according to the European Commission the economy is still expected to grow in 2009 while much of the rest of Europe is in recession.

The conference was chaired by Michael Imeson, contributing editor of The Banker magazine, part of the FT Group. He visited Malta recently and his article on how well Malta has weathered the global financial crisis was made available to attendees.

FinanceMalta’s Joseph Zammit Tabona said today: “The conference was a resounding success. We were extremely pleased with the seniority of the delegates, the quality of the institutions they were from and the interest they expressed in what our country has to offer. We are planning similar events in other European cities later this year and in 2010.”