FCM Bank Limited is a new Maltese bank, having been officially launched at the end of May. Its head office is in the striking new building, Aragon Business Centre, situated in the heart of St Julian’s.

The Bank’s sponsor, Fortelus Special Situations Master Fund Limited, has been active since 2007 in the European credit market.

The Fund is managed by Fortelus Capital Management LLP, based in Pall Mall, London, and authorised by the UK’s FSA.  Fortelus Capital Management LLP was founded by prominent investment manager Tim Babich who sits on the board with Chief Executive Officer, Michael Warrington and John Soler, a Maltese veteran banker with over 40 years’ experience.

FCM Bank will focus mainly on the deposit-taking market and will gear its lending business towards private and corporate clients.

The Escalator Term Deposit, FCM’s first product with a 27-month term was launched in June, offering good return combined with flexibility.

The business plan also looks beyond Malta. The intention is to launch FCM Bank in Europe by 2014 and to eventually explore opportunities to passport into different European markets.

Mr Warrington explains, “We aim to offer customers services which are competitively priced and attractively packaged in order to make things easy for people to understand.”

Mr Warrington pointed out how at FCM Bank, “We wish to do things a little bit differently to most of our local competitors in that we aim to focus on internet-based delivery channels in order to service our customers.”

FCM bank management strongly believes that “the cornerstone of banking is trust”.