Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri has urged local banks not to "close the door" on reformed prisoners by refusing to open an account for them. 

Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, the minister said a person he got to know while he was serving a prison sentence had undertaken great efforts to turn his life around after committing a crime. 

However, after embracing the straight and narrow path by cooperating with prison officials and attending rehabilitation sessions, learning a trade and finding an honest job, the man was turned away after attempting to open a bank account. 

"When I met him again after some time he told me, 'Have I made all this effort for nothing?'," Camilleri said. 

The minister said that after making an effort to rehabilitate and rejoin society, people who have served a prison sentence should not be made to feel as if their efforts were wasted. 

"What are we telling this man? That his effort was worth nothing and that he should go back and embrace the black economy?" he said. 

"This person wants to work, pay his taxes, and maybe buy a house one day. He wants to do things that any person, even I myself, hope to do with their life. But unfortunately, he was met with injustice." 

Former prisoners who acknowledge their unjust behaviour and pay their debt to society by trying to be good prisoners and make efforts to reform themselves should be incentivised to continue to lead a normal life, he continued. 

Having a bank account is a basic right that former prisoners should be able to access in order to hold down a dignified job and continue providing for themselves and their families. 

"I make this appeal to all of our local banks, let's not close the door in the faces of people who have made a mistake, because if we do, we will all suffer the consequences of sending them back to their old lives," Camilleri said. 

The minister pledged in parliament that he would write to local banks to explore how they could work with the government to facilitate access to banking services for former prisoners who turn their lives around.