Bank of Valletta on Wednesday morning was compelled to shut down its operations after the bank's systems fell victim to a hacking attempt.

During routine reconciliations that the Bank carries out regularly it was noticed that there were discrepancies in eleven payments having a total value of around EUR 13 million emanating from the Bank's foreign payment accounts.  The Bank took immediate steps to address this issue by requesting the international banks involved to stop these payments.

Following these events the Bank received information from local and international police authorities about a cyber-attack on the Bank.  The Bank took prompt action to stop all international payments.

When it became clear that the attack was systematic and sophisticated, the Bank triggered its contingency plan and took the decision to shut down its operations as a precautionary measure.

The Bank once again wants to reassure its clients that all customer deposits and customer accounts are not affected by this cyberattack. The Bank's priority is to ensure that all of its operating systems are safe and will be restoring services in a phased manner once it has been ascertained that these are safe and secure. Our people are working relentlessly to address this issue with the assistance of local and foreign experts in IT security.

Bank of Valletta once again apologises to its clients for this inconvenience and will be keeping its clients and the general public informed of developments. In the meantime, customers can direct any queries to the Bank's Customer Services Centre on 21312020.