FinanceMalta confirms line-up of speakers for annual conference

FinanceMalta has confirmed the line-up of speakers for this year’s annual conference which will take place on Thursday, 17 May at the Hilton Conference Centre, Malta. The conference will see a total of 49 financial services expert speakers with different backgrounds discussing global and domestic industry opportunities and challenges.

Entitled Finance without Frontiers, the speakers will address contemporary and current topics affecting the financial services industry including sessions on business start-ups, GDPR, cyber security, MiFiD II and MiFiR. The conference will kick-off with a pre-conference networking event on 16 May.

Commenting about the annual conference, speaker Dr Nasser Saidi, president of Nasser Saidi & Associates, a niche consultant and advisor to the banking and financial sector, governments, central banks, regulators, multi-national and regional companies, said: “The FinanceMalta event is timely and relevant at a time when AI and Blockchain technologies are starting to transform if not disrupt, payment systems, core banking activities, portfolio and asset management and the insurance industry. FinTech and RegTech are becoming buzzwords. It behoves us as policy makers, regulators and professionals to develop the enabling ecosystem for technological innovation to increase payment and financial efficiency, improve and deepen access to finance while preserving soundness of the financial system.”

Dr David P. Doyle, another speaker at this year’s conference and EU Policy adviser and expert specialising in financial services regulation, and frequent speaker on the EU agenda across the EU said that: “The FinanceMalta conference is particularly timely as the EU galvanizes support to complete the Banking Union and reviews the EU supervisory architecture covering the securities and capital markets and nonbanking sectors.”

The conference will be chaired by Kenneth Farrugia, chairman of FinanceMalta and will be moderated by Michael Imeson, from the influential financial services magazine The Banker. The Prime Minister, Dr Joseph Muscat will make the first keynote address followed by Helen Köpman, deputy head of Unit, Start-ups and Innovation from the European Commission.

Silvio Schembri, parliamentary secretary responsible for Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation, will discuss the current topic of Malta as a leader in DLT technology, which will be followed by a panel discussion on FinTech moderated by technology expert Dr Abdalla Kablan.

The morning session will continue with two stimulating presentations on Cyber security and Bitcoin, Blockchain and Initial Coin Offerings. This will be followed by a panel discussion which will be moderated by Dr Christopher Buttigieg, director at MFSA, with the participation of industry specialists Luke Scanlon, Luka Müller-Studer, Dr Max Ganado and Steve Tendon.

Two presentations, one on RegTech and the other focusing on the EU supervisory framework, will bring the morning session to an end.

The afternoon starts with four workshops running concurrently where delegates choose to attend any of the discussion sessions that will tackle GDPR, MiFiD II and MiFiR, Payment Services Directive II and The Insurance Distribution Directive, respectively.

The final presentation, to be followed by a discussion panel, will be discussing Brexit and the EU’s power of negotiation.