This news service recently met with the head of Malta's principal financial regulator to talk about developing the country's banking, investment and family office ecosystem.

When internationally-mobile high net worth and ultra-HNW individuals and families reconsider options in geopolitically tense times, several options arise. Malta, the Mediterranean island and European Union member state, is keen to press its case.

“We’ve invested in our systems and controls and there is a safe environment, and this is both in regulatory terms and as a jurisdiction,” Kenneth Farrugia, CEO of the Malta Financial Services Authority, the island’s principal financial services regulator, told WealthBriefing during a trip to London. 

“Some people are re-evaluating their choices [of jurisdiction] and there’s movement,” Farrugia said.

Malta is home to 20 banks and developing a financial ecosystem that, for example, includes an established family offices sector. The country updated its family offices framework in late 2024. 

Policymakers have been busy developing rules to keep the island on the front foot. The MFSA has published revised rules relating to Notified Professional Investor Funds and trustees of family trusts, to give one example.

These developments have resulted in faster structuring, greater certainty, reduced administrative burden, more proportionate regulation, while ensuring preservation of anti-money laundering safeguards, MFSA says. Notably, the regulator says it has provided clear definitions of what constitutes a “family office vehicle” and the types of investors that are available.

In Malta’s case, it wants to be the place where UHNW families can explore options. 

This position fits with the “family offices in motion” analysis which this news service published earlier in the year, when stories about UK-based family offices leaving the country in their droves were shown to be simplistic. Instead of organisations leaving one country and going to another, many are creating branches, sometimes for family members who have founded a separate business abroad or chosen to go their own way. Tax is often not even the most important consideration. 

Against a backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty and shifting regulatory landscape, Farrugia said “many wealthy families are looking to diversify where they structure and manage their wealth, rather than relying on a single jurisdiction...It is always good to have a second option” he said. “If circumstances change, you have an alternative.”

Digital edge
Away from family offices, Farrugia talked about the island’s digital assets ecosystem as another pillar of the jurisdiction’s financial services offering. As wealthy families increasingly explore investments in digital and tokenized assets, he argued that Malta’s early regulatory framework provides an additional advantage for those seeking a well-regulated European base.

“Malta was the first jurisdiction to establish a virtual financial assets framework in 2018,” he said. Referring to the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, which entered into force in 2023, Farrugia said Malta had anticipated the EU’s move years earlier. The island is home to 14 licensed entities under MiCA, although, he added, “it’s not the number of licence holders that matters, but their quality.”

Talent development
To illustrate how the regulator also supports talent management in the field of compliance, on 2 July the MFSA said that through its Financial Supervisors Academy, in collaboration with the University of Malta, it launched a new Master of Science (MSc) in Financial Regulation and Compliance.

The programme builds on the Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Regulation and Compliance introduced in 2024. The MSc programme, which starts in October 2026, is designed to equip professionals with advanced knowledge and practical skills in financial regulation, compliance, governance, risk management, financial crime prevention, sustainable finance and emerging regulatory developments.