The financial services sector is not only a significant contributor to Malta’s GDP – but it is also one of the most exciting and diverse. These qualities are reflected in the Malta Financial Services Authority’s workforce – young, dynamic and boasting various skill-sets.
“Our workforce, which currently stands at 430 members of staff, is as diverse as they come, with people coming from different backgrounds, nationalities, and with different skill-sets,” said Calvin Cassar, MFSA’s Head for People and Culture.
“We employ a workforce with a diverse educational background, and have employees with specialisation in finance, law, policy, but also technology, mathematics and statistics as well as investigative skills. It is exciting to see all this coming together and collaborating on projects and assignments – say, persons with a criminology background working with Analysts having a legal or finance background.” he added.
“IT and data are playing an increasingly important role in financial services, as organisations are called to increasingly make meaning out of big volumes of data and information, with the regulator being no exception to this. Additionally, security of data is also becoming key and we have established a cybersecurity team which is responsible for overseeing cybersecurity provisions in licensed entities.”
MFSA furthers the development of its people across various fronts and in a holistic manner.
“At the MFSA, we offer people an enriching environment where they can grow and where they have space for personal growth- Calvin Cassar, MFSA’s Head for People and Culture
“We have a support scheme through which we offer our people the opportunity to further their studies, as well as training, both locally and abroad, especially in specialist areas,” Cassar explained. “In fact, last year, we set up our Financial Supervisors Academy to provide in-house training. This formally-accredited training centre has been very successful – and in fact, we are now offering training to other regulators, with the aim of also opening it up to the industry at a later stage.”
Recruiting, sourcing and retaining talent is a challenge in all sectors – but especially in one as fast-moving as financial services.
“Our unique selling point lies in the experiences that we offer,” said Cassar. “At the MFSA, we offer people an enriching environment where they can grow and where they have space for personal growth.
“Of course, some of our members of staff do move on to seek pastures new in the industry,” he added. “However, when they do make the move, we see it as a positive thing, as this helps in the development of a compliance culture within the financial services sector. Also, we do have people joining us from the industry – and this in turn adds value to our workforce and gives us a better understanding of the commercial context.”
A knowledge-rich, focused environment adds to the level of readiness that an organisation can nurture.
“Before COVID-19, we already had a business continuity working group,” added Cassar. “However, we certainly did not anticipate the level of disruption that the pandemic would cause. That said we had a level of readiness and, shortly before the pandemic, we had already started introducing measures aimed at promoting flexibility, including remote working arrangements.
“This certainly helped our business continuity during the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, currently we have more than 90 per cent of our workforce working from home – and within this period we were able to maintain our ongoing operations, including supervisory activities, such as visits, as well as operational ones, including recruitment.
“Especially during this time, we also wanted to ensure that we support our people, psychologically, emotionally and in all areas of their personal well-being. We made sure we give managers the skills to handle this situation – and countered the risk of isolation by organising online team-building activities, such as cooking, pet grooming and quizzes after working hours.
“Our team is a multi-cultural one, with 66 non-Maltese employees coming from 22 countries. We are very sensitive to this and acknowledged that our non-Maltese members of staff might have other levels of stress during the pandemic – we also worked hard to address that.
“These are very strong foundations which have helped us grow, from a team of
290 people in 2018 to a 430-strong workforce today. We see the development of our people as key to help us reach new horizons,” Cassar added.