The first Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery in the Financial Services Sector seminar in Malta was a huge success as the Financial Services sector responded positively to the call of the Malta Institute of Management and the Malta Union of Bank Employees.
The seminar was launched by Reuben Buttigieg, chairman of MIM training division, which is investing heavily in education programmes in the financial services sector. Mr Buttigieg analysed the growth of the sector over the last years and assessed certain weaknesses that Malta needs to address in order to continue to grow in this area. The analysis focused among others on Malta legislation, implementation of directives, strategy vs legislation, innovation, Business Continuity and trustworthiness in the sector.
The seminar studied the Business Continuity and Disaster recovery and the legislation and Directives in place with respect to this area. Malcolm Cheshire gave the people and human resources perspective in Business Continuity while Joseph Agius from Bank of Valletta explained the delicate issues from an IT Perspective. Joseph Demanuele, CCO at MFSA gave details of all the legislation and directives in place and how the MFSA ensures that the Business Continuity plans are in place within the sector.
The seminar proceeded with a discussion addressing various other issues. Cultural issues were one of the main concerns addressed by the sector. Furthermore, the analysis of possible competitive advantage the larger organisations have over smaller organisations in implementing certain legislation was also addressed, particularlythat concerning Basel 2.
MIM and MUBE expressed their commitment once again to strengthen their collaboration in order to ensure having a continuous professional development programme. The collaboration between MUBE and MIM will create the necessary fora and platform to assist in gearing up even more for the development of the sector. Both organisations have been discussing with other bodies to team up on this mission. This collaboration is a first of its kind in Malta and both organisations highly believe in it.