The Mediterranean Bank Network held its annual general meeting in Verona, Italy, last month. The meeting was held at the head office of the Presidency Bank, Banco Popolare di Verona e Novara

The AGM approved the annual report and financial statements (2005) together with a wide-ranging and comprehensive list of proposals, some of which included:

• A new mission statement for the MBN;

A new Statute that introduced the function of a management board whose members will be the chairman of the board and the managing director so as to handle the day-to-day running of the organisation on behalf of the Executive Board;

• A new class of ‘Associate’ membership that will be made available to selected and internationally reputable multinational companies;

• A three-year Business Plan (2006–2009), which approved a new strategy of operation and income generation activities and which will further enhance/promote the MBN “brand” and “trade name”;

• The further development of MBN conferencing related to financial services;

• An MBN Master Risk Participation Agreement and Cash Pooling Agreement;

• A modest increase in the number of banking (functional) committees in the areas of “Consumer Affairs”, “Money Laundering” “Economic Monetary Affairs”, “EU Legislation and Policies” etc;

• Recruitment of new banks from Greece, Lebanon, Morocco and France.

The Mediterranean Bank Network is a regional banking association headquartered in Malta and has as its “executive” members: Banco Popolare di Verona e Novara (Italy), Banco Sabadell (Spain), Bank of Jordan (Jordan), Bank of Valletta (Malta), Banque Internationale Arabe de Tunisie (Tunisia), Commercial International Bank (Egypt), Hellenic Bank (Cyprus), Israel Discount Bank (Israel), Nova Ljubjanska Banka (Slovenia), Turkiye Garanti Bankasi (Turkey) and Zagrebacka Banca (Croatia).