Updated 2 pm 

A rush of legal notices ushering in higher fees for banks, insurance providers and financial services companies were quietly published in the Government Gazette on Christmas Eve.

A total of eight new legal notices were published, amending a whole host of legislation governing everything from retirement funds to banks, trusts and crypto assets.

Many of the legal notices increase application and supervisory fees for companies operating within these sectors, upping the amount they will have to dish out to regulatory authorities such as MFSA to operate in Malta.

A bank could now have to pay a €35,000 application fee to start operating in Malta, together with an annual supervisory fee ranging between €50,000 and €1.7m.

Companies operating on the stock market will also see their fees increase, while insurance brokers will also have to fork out more each year to retain their licence.

Likewise, application and annual supervision fees will also rise for trusts and anyone offering retirement schemes or investment management programmes

In many cases, the amounts that companies will have to pay vary greatly depending on the type of business that it operates, with fees rising exponentially over the next handful of years.

These are believed to be the first such increases in supervisory fees in several years, despite Malta’s untimely FATF greylisting in 2021 forcing Malta to up its game in the fight against financial crime.

But the increases were conspicuously absent from last October’s budget speech, which promised to introduce new legislation to make Malta more attractive for companies operating in several niche sectors, including fintech and AI.

New fees are ‘a blow to the sector’: PN

The increases were slammed by PN shadow ministers Jerome Caruana Cilia and Graham Bencini in a statement on Friday, who described them as “another blow that further burdens operators in the sector”.

“These taxes were not announced at any grand press conference under a large marquee in front of Castille but were instead quietly introduced during the Christmas festivities.” Caruana Cilia and Bencini said.

“This tax burden will ultimately fall on clients – that is, Maltese families and businesses,” they added.

Fees necessary to cover rising costs - Ministry 

In a statement published on Friday afternoon, the finance ministry said the rise in fees had been recommended by the International Monetary Fund and only introduced after consultation with industry stakeholders. 

The higher fees are necessary to cover the MFSA’s rising costs, the ministry said, arguing that while its regulatory and supervisory work had “increased exponentially” over the years, the fees it charged remained the same since 2014.

“This reform is but a natural consequence of the changes and developments which took place over the past decade,” the ministry said.

Despite the higher fees, the ministry insisted, Malta “remains competitive when compared to other jurisdictions” and doesn’t exceed the equivalent fees in other countries.