When the European Parliament committee, known as PANA, visited Malta last year, it met, among others, the MFSA top levels who impressed upon it how seriously they take due diligence and how they had exercised strict oversight on the Pilatus Bank.

The bank had already been at the center of controversy before, much before the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia. The then head of FIAU, Manfred Galdes, had written to Police Commissioner Michael Cassar with regards to the Pilatus Bank. Mr Cassar resigned on health grounds two days later. Then Mr Galdes too resigned. Any police investigation was shelved.

The leaked FIAU reports on the Pilatus Bank state the misgivings of the FIAU on the goings-on at the bank. It has been argued these were not conclusive reports but whatever they were, they were not taken into account by the police who did not investigate the bank.

Now all has changed. Within 24 hours of charges by the US investigative forces against the owner of the Pilatus Bank, Ali Sadr, and some prodding, publicly acknowledged by the Minister for Finance, the MFSA issued a series of directives regarding the bank.

It stripped Ali Sadr from exercising his ownership of the bank, stopped shareholders from doing anything with the bank's assets and appointed a commissioner to take charge of the bank. It did not stop the bank's clients, including some notorious names, from continuing to use the services of the bank.

The country, and indeed the world, have not been informed for the reason for this sudden change of heart, unless that is, this was a knee-jerk reaction to the arraignment in the US.

While the government in Malta twisted around trying to blame what happened on the previous PN administration, although the bank had been given its permits under this administration and prime minister Joseph Muscat turned logic upside down and said the bank had been given its permits by the same MFSA board appointed by the preceding administration and Minister for Finance Edward Scicluna exclaimed there is not more corruption now than there was before, the MFSA suddenly came down like a ton of bricks on the Pilatus Bank.

It has been revealed that an American delegation had visited the MFSA over the past months but nowhere had it been revealed that MFSA was investigating the bank. MFSA had given the bank an upgrade in the past years. And as said at the beginning of this leader, the MFSA delegation had impressed upon the PANA committee on the seriousness of its acting according to its remit.

Apart from any ministerial prodding, the real situation regarding banking supervision and oversight in Malta can probably be found in the long interview which Minister Scicluna gave to Anthony Manduca on the Sunday Times last Sunday.

The minister spoke more like a father, or an uncle, than a minister. He commiserated with the MFSA top levels for the stress they found themselves under and revealed, probably without intending to, the close personal links with the top levels, whatever their political leanings.

The image one gets is of close personal friendship, which is a good thing normally, but not when there are so many sharks in the sea and when any slight mistake may jeopardise Malta's good name as a serious jurisdiction.

The minister has now initiated a thorough review of procedures, which may be too little too late. The damage has been done. What is needed is a far more serious and robust oversight by our regulators than what has been done so far, and probably less conviviality and more stringent checks and balances.

If we are not prepared to build sufficient safeguards and a far more robust oversight, we should not have ventured in such a delicate sector.