We will work hard until the last minute - Clyde Caruana

In 2019, Moneyval’s assessment of our financial regulatory framework painted a picture of a country which had a passable foundation to combat financial crime but which came up short in many important pillars in the systems in place.

These areas were lacking for many years, under both Labour and Nationalist administrations, and Moneyval’s technical experts raised the alarm that Malta needed to pull itself together and strengthen these important compliance needs in an assertive manner.

In my year as head of secretariat at the office of the prime minister and in the past six months as finance and employment minister, we have worked tirelessly together with our team of civil servants to introduce the legislative, regulatory and institutional changes that address all the shortcomings raised back in 2019.

This task was not an easy one. It required an intense government process as well as support from the industry to enhance their compliance mechanisms.

Anyone in the financial or banking sector in Malta has felt the weight of the implementation of these reforms and the immense sacrifice borne by the practitioners and operators.

I do believe that today we have reached the expected...