The Governors of the Board of FinanceMalta met recently for its second annual general meeting.

In his address, FinanceMalta chairman Kenneth Farrugia said that despite the financial turmoil and economic crisis faced by the international financial community, Malta's banking sector has proven to be relatively resilient.

He emphasised that notwithstanding the achievements in this sector, it was imperative to further strengthen the level of promotional initiatives being organised in order to ensure that Malta continues to enjoy sustainable growth.

Mr Farrugia explained that industry must constantly focus on three core critical success factors which were pivotal for the growth of the industry. These relate to the presence and availability of sufficiently qualified human resources, the importance of sustaining Malta's responsiveness and flexibility when processing and servicing business applications, and that of ensuring a proper framework in place to expedite any updates or changes to our legal and regulatory framework in order to ensure that this sustains our competitiveness going forward.

He highlighted the constant need for Malta's financial services industry and its various stakeholders to be seen as innovators in an already crowded and homogenous marketplace. Consequently, he was pleased to note that the industry, government and the regulator are working hard together driven by a common vision to ensure the presence of an appropriate set-up that encourages new ways of thinking, perspectives and proposals: ones which are in the main driven by market opportunities ensuring in the process that effective solutions are duly identified and acted upon in an expedient manner.