1st November, 2022 08:30 Conference Conference: Financial Services of Tomorrow: Regulatory Perspective

Dr Michelle Mizzi Buontempo was appointed as Chief Officer Enforcement in March 2020, after five years occupying the position of Head of Conduct Supervision within the MFSA. As from 9 September 2022 the Board of Governors has appointed Dr Mizzi Buontempo as Acting CEO. Dr Mizzi Buontempo has over twenty years of experience in the regulation and supervision of different areas within financial services, including supervision of investment firms and fiduciaries. She represented the MFSA at various Committees of the ESAs. During her career within the MFSA, Dr Mizzi Buontempo has been entrusted with the responsibility of piloting a number of projects including the setting up of a regulatory regime to enhance consumer protection in the investments and insurance sector, as well the establishment of a new regulatory framework for trustees and company service providers. Dr Michelle Mizzi Buontempo regularly lectures on corporate governance and consumer protection. An advocate by profession, Michelle was awarded a Masters Degree in Financial Services from the University of Malta. She also holds a warrant to practice in the Maltese Courts. Prior to joining the MFSA, she headed the corporate division of a leading audit firm specialising in financial services.

Rūta Merkevičiūtė is a Head of Digital Finance unit at the European Banking Authority (EBA) that is responsible for the EBA’s work on monitoring financial innovation and identifying areas where a regulatory and supervisory response might be needed. She is also leading work on digital operational resilience and crypto-assets with a focus on EC proposals for a regulation on Markets in Crypto-assets (MICA) and on Digital operational resilience for the financial sector (DORA). Previously she was Director of Financial Services and Markets Supervision Department at Bank of Lithuania, that was responsible for capital markets, prudential supervision of less significant financial institutions and financial services supervision. Ruta has professional legal qualification as an attorney-at law and for the past 12 years has been working both in private sector and financial sector’s supervision in the areas that include AML, payments, lending, investment and FinTech industry.

Ravi Bhalla is Head of Department for Innovation within the FCA.  He provides leadership across seven key functions across his department.  This includes the FCA’s Innovation Hub which houses a number of market innovation services including Innovation Pathways, Regulatory Sandbox and the Digital Sandbox.  Secondly, a digital and data services function which aims to leverage a digital test environment for internal and external use cases.  Thirdly, a regulator engagement function with domestic and international regulators through bilateral and multilateral agreements.  This includes chairing the Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN) and championing the Global Sandbox.  Fourth, the RegTech and SupTech function which encourages the development of new technologies to solve regulatory challenges for firms and supervisory organisations.  Fifth, an emerging technology function which researches emerging trends which influence the intersection of data, technology and financial services.  Sixth, an Artificial Intelligence team which works with domestic regulators and think tanks to further the discussion in this area. And finally, a change and development function which aims to drive our internal and external change agenda including branding, marketing and communications He is a high- impact enterprise-level senior leader with over 17 years of management experience across telecoms, insurance and financial services in both industry (BT, AIG, Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds Banking Group) and consulting (KPMG). Ravi was previously Head of Group Design, Strategy & Transformation for Lloyds Banking Group where he led an  in-house strategy and transformation consulting function at Lloyds Banking Group. This has included shaping strategic initiatives such as customer vulnerability, architectural simplification, advanced analytics, cloud operating model design, regulatory change design and operational resilience. During his time at KPMG, Ravi worked with a number of challenger banks and FinTechs and played a pivotal role in establishing KPMG’s FinTech practice. Ravi has received a number of awards, including the Barclays Gold Experience Award, the Lloyds Banking Group Leadership: Inspire Delivery Award and the Lloyds Banking Group Leadership: Inspire Collaboration Award. He was selected  for the Lloyds Banking Group executive leadership talent programme, which is for colleagues who demonstrate the attributes and potential to attain an executive-level position. Ravi holds a BSc (Hons) in Business Management from the University of East Anglia and an MA in Management, Economics and International Relations from the University of St. Andrews. Ravi has published a number of articles in internationally peer reviewed journals, including most recently a co-authored paper with University of Cambridge, Judge Business School Fellow, Elisabetta Osta entitled ‘Digital Transformation and the Covid challenge, (March 2021) Journal of Digital Banking as well as individual publications ‘FinTech Innovation: Revolutionary or Evolutionary Business Model Disruption?’ (2019), Journal of Digital Banking; ‘The 12 Point Customer Engagement Model’ (2013), Journal of Brand Strategy; ‘Omnichannel: Driving Engagement through Digitization’ (2014), Journal of Digital Banking.  

Denise Delaney is Head of the Policy and Risk Horizontal Function within the Financial Regulation: Policy and Risk Directorate at the Central Bank of Ireland. She is responsible for the development and coordination of innovation policy, including the Central Bank’s approach to engagement with innovators, via the Innovation Hub and outreach programme. She is also responsible for the implementation of the Central Bank’s approach to engagement with stakeholders, via the Industry Forum.

Kenneth Farrugia is the Chief Executive Officer of Bank of Valletta plc. He sits on the Board of Directors of the Bank as an Executive Director, chairs the Executive Committee and is a member of several management committees. Kenneth also chairs the Board of Directors of BOV Fund Services Limited and sits on the Board of Directors of BOV Asset Management Limited. Kenneth began his career at Bank of Valletta in 1985. Over this period, he has occupied various executive positions covering the bank’s asset management, retail banking and credit business areas. He also occupied various financial services related industry positions to include the Chair of the Malta Asset Servicing Association, a board member of the European Fund and Asset Management Association as well as the Chair of FinanceMalta, Malta’ national promotional body for the financial services industry. He was also the Chair of Malita Investments plc, which is listed on the Malta Stock Exchange. Kenneth is a Harvard Business School Alumnus, having completed a General Management Program at Harvard Business School.

Marcel Cassar is CEO of APS Bank plc since January 2016. His extensive career started in 1987 with Price Waterhouse Malta, followed by MIBA/MFSC (1991-1996), now MFSA, where he also served on the Executive Committee. He was General Manager at Lombard Bank Malta plc (1996-2004) and First Executive Vice President and CFO at FIMBank plc (2004-2015). As a board member of the Malta Bankers’ Association, he served as Deputy Chairman (2017-2018) and Chairman (2018-2020, and now again since June 2022), leading to a seat on the board of the European Banking Federation. Marcel is a CPA, a fellow member of the Malta Institute of Accountants and holds an MBA in Bank Financial Management awarded jointly by the University of Wales and Manchester Business School (1995). He has lectured, supervised and examined at the FEMA and in the MA Financial Services course, University of Malta on banking policy and regulation.

Jesmond Gatt joined the Central Bank of Malta in 1984, graduating in Mathematics and Computing at the University of Malta in 1995. During a  39 year career at the Bank he has worked on all major IT projects, and is today Chief Officer responsible for retail banking services,  management of currency and the regulation of payment systems and infrastructures.  Formed part of core financial sector team which oversaw the changeover to the Euro in Malta in 2008.  Since Malta became part  of the European Union he has been a member of a number of Eurosystem committees working on payments systems and the management of euro notes and coins.  He has also participated in a number of European Commission initiatives drawing up payment systems regulations.  For the last 6  years been sitting on the Board of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit in Malta, three of them acting as chairman to the Board.

Dr. Joachim Schwerin is Principal Economist in the unit responsible for the Digital Transformation of Industry within the Directorate-General Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) of the European Commission. He is responsible for developing the policy approach of DG GROW towards the Token Economy and Distributed-Ledger Technologies as well as their applications for industry and SMEs. Moreover, he coordinates initiatives to foster the development of digital skills for the European industrial ecosystems. In 2020, he contributed to the Digital Finance Strategy, including the MiCA Regulation. Joachim holds a PhD in economics from Dresden University of Technology and was Post-Doc Research Fellow at the Economic History Department of the London School of Economics before he joined the European Commission.

Herman Ciappara was appointed as Head of FinTech Supervision in March 2020, after joining the MFSA as Head of FinTech & Innovation in September 2019. Herman started his 30-year long career at the Central Bank of Malta in 1989, holding several managerial positions within a number of functions at the Bank, amongst them, Information Technology, Operational Risk, Business Continuity and Information Security. Since 2011 he has held the position of Head of Payments & Banking, responsible for SEPA Regulation, Interchange Fee Regulation and PSD2, whilst acting as a catalyst function to influence retail payments policy and the development of the payments landscape in Malta. During this time he was Chair for the Payment System User Group and the API Standard Working Group, working closely with the Malta Bankers’ Association, as well as Chair of the Malta Clearing House Committee and the Malta SWIFT User Group. On a European landscape, Herman was an active member in the Market Infrastructure and Payments Committee at the European Central Bank, the Standing Committee for Payment Services at the European Banking Authority and the Commission Expert Group on Banking, Payments and Insurance at the European Commission. Herman graduated in Business Management with B.A. (Hons.) from the University of Malta and holds a Graduate Diploma in the Management of Information Systems from the University of Greenwich.

Camille Pepos is a Deputy Head within the Fintech Supervision function of the MFSA which is entrusted with the authorisation and supervision of VFA Service Providers, VFA Agents and Whitepapers. An Economist by academic background, Camille also possesses two Master degrees in Finance and Wealth Management from the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis and IAE Graduate School of Management. Before joining the MFSA, Camille held various roles in private banking, fundraising, fintech advisory and corporate services.

Luciano Brincat is a Deputy Head within the Fintech Supervision function of the MFSA, responsible for the implementation of the MFSA’s FinTech initiatives. Throughout his career Luciano has been actively engaged in financial regulation and the development thereof, with a particular interest in the regulatory implications arising from innovation in the financial services landscape. Luciano was previously involved in the regulation and supervision of investment firms as well as the development of the Virtual Financial Assets Framework, MFSA FinTech Strategy and MFSA FinTech Regulatory Sandbox. Luciano holds a Bachelor of honours degree in Economics and MSc in Banking and Finance from the University of Malta.

Danny Dehghani is a special advisor in the division for fintech at the Danish FSA. Danny has a strong knowledge of the FSAs innovation hub in general and regulatory sandbox in particular.

Christos is a FinTech specialist within the Financial Technology (FinTech) Department at the Bermuda Monetary Authority (Authority or BMA). Mr Efthymiopoulos is responsible for regulation, licensing and supervision of the FinTech sector, particularly digital asset businesses and issuers. He is directly involved in developing, implementing and administering the legislative and regulatory frameworks under the Digital Asset Business Act 2018 and the Digital Asset Issuance Act 2020. Mr Efthymiopoulos is a legal professional with more than ten years of experience in the financial services industry, focusing on FinTech for the past six years, including two years at the BMA. Prior to joining the Authority, Mr Efthymiopoulos worked at the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), where he was heavily involved in developing and implementing Malta’s legislative and regulatory Virtual Financial Assets (VFA) framework. He was, inter alia, responsible for regulating, licensing and supervising VFA Agents, VFA Issuers and VFA Service Providers. During his tenure, Mr Efthymiopoulos represented the MFSA at various European fora, including the European Banking Authority’s taskforce on crypto assets.

MaryAnne Scicluna is the Senior Executive Director of Supervision Division at the Financial Services Authority in Abu Dhabi Global Market. Ms Scicluna has a long experience in regulation spanning more than 26 years. She has worked extensively in various aspects of the regulatory ambit covering authorisations, supervision, enforcement and policy primarily within a European regulatory framework. Before joining the FSRA in ADGM, she sat on the Boards of the European Authorities (ESMA, EBA, EIOPA).

Mr. Joseph Zammit Tabona FCA, CPA, FIA, FMIT, MOM, KM, was appointed as the Chairperson of the Malta Financial Services Advisory Council in April 2021. Mr. Zammit Tabona became a partner of the Malta local branch of Turquand Youngs & Co in 1972 and was a senior partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) until his retirement from active practice in March 2000. In December 2016, the Government of Malta appointed Mr Zammit Tabona a Member of the Order of Merit. On the 14^th November 2017, the Malta Stock Exchange plc awarded Mr. Zammit Tabona with the Lifetime Achievement Award. In March 2015, Mr Zammit Tabona was appointed Chairman of Tigne Mall plc, which is a public quoted company on the Malta Stock Exchange plc. Mr Zammit Tabona still holds this position to date.

Dr Ian Gauci is the Managing Partner of GTG Advocates. He advises multiple government bodies and is one of the local key figures on technology law matters. He is also an international speaker, lecturer and author. Dr Gauci is recognised as a Tier 1 leading individual in Fintech by Chambers and Partners and Legal 500.

Wayne Pisani heads the tax, regulatory and compliance practice within Grant Thornton. He advises an extensive client base ranging from private clients, including family offices and high-net-worth individuals, to NASDAQ listed companies.  Working across several industry sectors, he deals with a wide range of cross-border regulatory, compliance and tax planning engagements involving both local and international financial institutions, asset protection, M&A and project finance transactions. Wayne is a published author and member of the Malta Financial Services Advisory Council set up by the Minister for Finance and Employment and tasked with setting out a ten-year strategic plan for the financial services industry. He presently chairs the Financial Services Regulated Business Committee of the Institute of Financial Services Practitioners having been the president of the Institute and a member of the board of governors of FinanceMalta between 2018 and 2021.

Conrad Portanier’s legal practice focuses on banking and financial law, as well as general commercial and corporate law. Conrad heads the banking and finance team at Ganado Advocates and has a wealth of experience in advising domestic and international financial institutions. He has considerable practical experience in structuring deals and advising on various aspects of commercial and financial law. He is also responsible for issuing the firm’s industry legal opinions to a number of organisations including the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA), the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) and the Central Bank of Malta. He has written a number of articles on financial services legislation in Malta and has participated in many Maltese legislative initiatives in connection with financial services legislation. Conrad is also a visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Laws, University of Malta.

Bernard Agius is responsible for Digital Services policy and initiatives at the Malta Communications Authority. His background is in management, ICT and education with over 25 years experience in both public and private sectors. He holds a Doctorate in Business Administration from Durham Business School with a research focus on ICT adoption and diffusion.

Mr Nirav Patel is an accomplished and high-achieving Payments and Banking Executive, holding 15+ years’ experience that includes developing strategies and leading organisations to maintain both growth and profitability. Results focused with proven expertise in the payments sector, with a strong focus on Governance Frameworks, Digital Transformation and identifying commercial market opportunities with innovation at its forefront. Nirav is CEO & Executive Director of Andaria Financial Services, an EMI, focused through its innovative approach on technology and services, providing Embedded Finance solutions across Europe.

Charlon is the Managing Director of Finaro, (formerly Credorax Bank). He is a vastly experienced financial services executive who has worked with various global and listed organisations within retail banking, payments, corporate finance, capital markets and structured finance for over 20 years. Starting his career in assurance with Deloitte Europe, he subsequently joined the banking and capital market team with PricewaterhouseCoopers, New York. He has since covered various roles within a wide span of organisations, industries and geographies including Deutsche Bank AG, NY and Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Europe. Post the 2009 credit crises, Charlon got involved in the setting up of various licensed institutions within the fintech and asset management taking on executive roles, building the corporate and management structure, taking the institutions from licensing to operational stage.  Charlon sits on various boards and committees and holds a Chartered Professional qualification from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.

Mr Eric Micallef started working at the Authority through an internship within the Enforcement Function (AML/CFT section) while reading for his Bachelor’s Degree (Hons) in Criminology at the University of Malta. Mr Micallef is also in possession of an International Diploma in Anti-Money Laundering from the University of Manchester and is a second-year student, reading for a Masters in Forensic Accounting at the University of Portsmouth. He has formed part of the MFSA’s Financial Crime Compliance Function for four years, conducting AML/CFT and Sanctions Compliance Examinations as part of the Function’s Onsite team in close collaboration with the FIAU and SMB. At present, as a Senior Analyst within FCC, he works as part of the Offsite and Risk Analysis team focusing on designing / delivering internal financial crime related training and representing the MFSA in external training and outreach events.  As part of this role, Mr Micallef also provides lectures at the University of Malta on a casual visiting basis. Additionally, he also contributes towards the Authority’s implementation of its AML/CFT strategy collaboratively with the various Supervisory Functions at both authorisation and ongoing supervisory stages, with particular focus on risk analysis and governance.

Alan Decelis was appointed Head of Supervisory ICT Risk and Cybersecurity in July 2021. Alan brings over twenty years of experience in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), mainly with the Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA) including ten years in information security. He is a member of the National Cybersecurity Strategy Steering Committee and sits in various groups within the European System of Financial Supervision and the EU Agency for Cybersecurity. He has direct industry experience in ICT operations and service management, quality and security management systems, public key infrastructures, identity and machine-readable travel documents, and electronic signatures. He is also experienced in cyber incident management, forensic investigations, security testing, threat intelligence, and security operations centres. Alan pursued undergraduate studies in Electronics Engineering, Economics, Information Systems and Management and postgraduate studies in Information Security specialising in Security Testing and Digital Forensics. He is also CISA, CIPP/E, CIPM, ITIL, and ISO/IEC 27001 certified.