It’s obvious that Valletta is essentially a small city. Unlike the big (and even not so big) other capitals in Europe, it has no financial district to speak of. New York boasts of its Midtown Manhattan, London its City and Canary Wharf districts, Frankfurt its Bankenviertal, and even the Delhi (Connaught Place) and Algiers (its Bab Ezzouar) cities, are all specific conglomerations of buildings occupied only by banks and other finance houses.
The fact, however, remains that in Malta, over time, banks and similar organisations did occupy buildings spread all over Valletta. But not a specific financial district, and effectively a spread that would make a tour of ‘financial Valletta’ in essence a tour of the whole of Valletta.
In historic terms, pride of honour should perhaps be given to the building in Republic Street (close to St George’s Square) which is presently used by Malta’s foremost gentlemen’s club, the Casino Maltese. That edifice was first used by the Knights of St John from around 1744 to house its Comun Tesoro, i.e. that body within the Order responsible for the vast majority of its financial functions. In reality, these operations included many of an essentially banking function.
Abela’s work (2001) on the records of the Order (as found in the National Library) shows that between 1697 and 1706 the Comun Tesoro was also referred to as the Aerarium Commune or the Sacro Tesoro.
Having embarked on our walk-through-financial-Valletta tour one could from that point choose to walk further down Republic Street or upwards towards Valletta’s entrance. Slightly beyond St George’s Square, facing each other, are two buildings with a lot of banking history in them.
On the left is the building which in 1881 started to be occupied by Anglo Egyptian Bank Ltd, and was followed then by the head offices of all the direct successors of that bank, viz Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas), then becoming DCO, and later Ltd, then Mid-Med Bank Ltd, and eventually also HSBC before they decided to concentrate all their functions in Qormi. Many generations of bankers remember this address, ‘233’ in Kingsway, with much nostalgia.
Right across the road from ‘233’ is the beautiful entrance of Malta’s Chamber of Commerce. Soon after its construction in 1854, this building (a veritable palazzino in fact) gave space within itself to house what were Malta’s oldest banks, i.e. the Banco Anglo-Maltese (originally founded in 1809), and the Banco di Malta in 1812.
It must be remembered that the Malta Chamber of Commerce had, over its history (vide La Borsa, Gutenberg Press, 2013), several presidents who concurrently were also chairman of various banks in Malta.
Retracing our steps, we can now walk up Republic Street again and turn down to the left into Archbishop Street. There the famous Italian bank Banco di Roma operated in another beautiful building close to where the Civil Service Sports Club now exists.
The nostalgic will lament that our present two bigger banks have moved their head offices to outside Valletta
The bank operated there until the UK versus Italy war events − as excellently narrated in Luigi De Rosa’s Storia di Una Banca − led to its closure, with indeed many locals (including the author’s former step-uncle) then losing their jobs and several going to live in Italy.
Back up again into St George’s Square (or now also Palace Square) itself, we there had for quite a long time the offices of another two old banks. These were Scicluna’s Bank and Tagliaferro Bank, which also had another office in St John’s Square.
These two banks eventually merged into the National Bank of Malta group. Later, the direct descendent of this group, the Bank of Valletta plc, moved up Republic Street to start occupying its present offices across the road from the Kings’ Own Malta Band Club. Where the Dominicans’ St Albert’s College now stands, with entrances in Old Theatre Street and Old Bakery Street, there once was also the beautiful Palazzo de Souza which also housed the main office of Scicluna’s Bank for some time.
Other parts and streets spread all over Valletta, which, at various times have had buildings and palazzinos occupied by Malta’s banks and financial institutions, include the following:
St Paul’s Steet: there the church’s own APS Bank started as a mutual society and grew impressively. Further down in the same street there was the forerunner of today’s Lombard Bank, which was essentially an agency run by an importer/ trader (Joseph Micallef) actively engaged in enticing the locals to place savings into the UK-based Lombard North Central (UK) Ltd.
St Barbara Bastions: For a long time, a beautiful palazzino located there, was occupied by one of Malta’s greatest ever philantropists, the Marquis Vincenzo Bugeja. In our times, this then became the offices of Mediterranean Bank. We have to be precise about this, because before the contemporary Mediterranean Bank (now WE Bank), there actually existed in Malta’s banking history at least another two banks with that same name.
All these financial institutions and banks, and other smaller ones over time, have done credit to Valletta’s palazzos and old houses. The nostalgic will lament that our present two bigger banks have now moved their head offices to outside Valletta, HSBC to Mill Street in Qormi, and BOV to Santa Venera. But on a collective basis these institutions, plus other related services providers, such as lawyers, accountants and others, have also over time occupied many other important edifices in the city. For a very long time, for example, Bank of Valletta ran a most interesting Museum of Banking History in its former office on St John’s Square close to our beloved co-cathedral.
As said above, even though Valletta is essentially a small city, a complete ‘financial Valletta’ walking tour of these unevenly concentrated buildings, can be, besides tiring, also a very interesting experience.
John Consiglio lectures in the Department of Banking & Finance at the University of Malta, and is the author of A History of Banking in Malta (Progress Press, 2006).