Sparkasse Bank Malta plc Managing Director Mr Paul Mifsud recently contributed to the Chamber of Commerce’s publication covering Malta’s economic vision for 2022.
Within the article, Paul Mifsud highlights that due to the recent greylisting of Malta, further due diligence stress points are anticipated in 2022.
Whilst this is not at the forefront of manifesting itself, one may also anticipate an economic slowdown, and because of this, banks are always looking at it as a matter of concern, especially if they have large credit exposures on their books, which is usually prevalent for local retail banks.
Fortunately for Sparkasse Bank Malta plc, this is not necessarily the case, as the Bank has positioned itself to focus on Depositary and Custody Services to Funds and Retirement Schemes licenced in Malta which as a result has led to minimal credit exposures to the local economy. As a result of this strategy, the Bank retains a high degree of liquidity and low exposure to credit risk proving the necessary comfort discerning professional customers seek from their custodian bankers.
While deposits and liquidity held with the central banks represent a high cost for the Bank this approach has served well during the COVID economic slowdown as the Bank was not exposed to credit moratoria or bad debt provisioning, says Mifsud.
Paul Mifsud opined that the primary challenges for 2022 remain relatively unchanged since last year in so far as negative interest rates, IT scalability and a renewed focus on enhanced due diligence as a result of the island’s greylisting. However, he concluded that Sparkasse Bank Malta plc was well-positioned to achieve its ambition of a continued personalised and efficient service to the Bank’s Customers along with career progression and opportunities to the Bank’s workforce.
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