Bank of Valletta made a €48.7 million pre-tax profit in 2022 but will not be paying shareholders any dividends.

In a statement, BOV justified the lack of dividend by saying the bank remains “weighed down” by the cost of the Deiulemar settlement.

The bank last year reached a €182 million settlement over the long-drawn-out Deiulemar bankruptcy case in Italy.

Shareholders of the collapsed shipping giant were found guilty of fraud and seven members of the company's founders were jailed by an Italian court in 2014. BOV had taken over a trust that held €363 million in the company's assets in 2009. When the company went bankrupt, bondholders whose savings were wiped out turned to BOV. 

The bank said in its statement that in light of the settlement, BOV’s directors are not proposing a dividend for the year.

“This is consistent with efforts to sustain the capital and liquidity strength of the bank’s balance sheet, generating the capacity for further business growth over the coming years.

“This approach meets the exacting regulatory expectations on the bank and is consistent with a prudent approach in the context of overall developments in the global economy and financial markets”.

The bank said it is pushing ahead with its efforts to more towards digitalisation and simplification.

BOV said that last year, it needed to balance the pace of change when managing staff through a significant transformation, whilst continuously improving the group’s risk and control environment to ensure compliance with current, new and emerging regulatory requirements.

Nonetheless, the bank said it implemented several quick wins on service delivery using the latest techniques to provide low-cost-high speed improvements.