Global economist Stuart Green, from HSBC Bank UK, will address the Institute of Financial Services Malta’s annual seminar, Financial Turmoil in International Markets: What Lessons Can We Learn? This will be held at the Hilton Conference Centre today.

The seminar tackles the prevailing credit crisis which began early last year with rising defaults in the US subprime mortgage market, and which has continued to spread and is now affecting Europe. The Internatio-nal Monetary Fund estimates that total losses and write-offs from this crisis could reach $945 billion with banks expected to suffer slightly more than half.

Mr Green works with HSBC’s economists across the world to help formulate the group’s global economic coverage. His recent financial reports tackled the impact of globalisation upon commodity prices and an analysis of the potential growth implications of the financial market volatility.