Human gestation is a matter of months. Not so for what is the leading professional education body in the world of finance, the Institute of Bankers. More than 30 years of discussions and deliberations had preceded the birth of the Institute in London in 1879.

But when birth did come this leading professional education institution kicked off with a very solid basis of support from the profession. It had some 3,000 members in its foundation year, and since then this membership is now to be found in some 120 countries around the world.

There are over 25,000 professional bankers across the world who are paid up members of the now renamed Institute of Financial Services. What is very interesting is that this membership is very evenly spread, percentage-wise, across all of the under 30s (18 per cent), 31-40 (19 per cent), 40-50 (13 per cent), 51-60 (19 per cent), and 60+ (31 per cent) age groupings. This indicates that even after obtaining the Institute’s qualifying degrees or certificates many remain in active membership, attending the many continued professional education events and courses, and other activities, organised in the Institute’s several local centres, and receiving what is probably the best banking magazine in the world, Financial World.

Membership found in some 120 countries around the world

The Institute of Bankers came to Malta through the foresight, and great vision for banking’s future in this nation, held by the person who most surely merits the description of “the father of Maltese banking”, Louis E. Galea. The foundation meeting was an auspicious event held on December 16, 1961, and among the older still living members of the profession the memory is still alive of that important evening at the Malta Chamber of Commerce, with official recognition then even being represented through the presence of Governor Sir Guy Grantham and Bishop Galea.

Naturally Galea was local president of the Institute for many long years. When he ceded the position he was followed by a nonstop list of other prominent Maltese bankers who never stopped working for the advancement of professional banking education in the country, both within the profession itself, and wider out in the general financial education structures of the country, including at the University of Malta and other institutions.

This 140th anniversary of the Institute of Financial Services is, inevitably, being celebrated in a big way in London and many other centres overseas. I will not go into the merits of whether this is a bigger event than the Institute’s first centenary celebrated over 40 years ago, and this for two reasons. Firstly because this writer was then the president of the Institute’s Malta Centre and led the centre’s delegation to the big events which had commemorated that even in the City of London. That event had amply shown with what high esteem Malta’s centre was held there. And secondly because over these four decades since then so much has changed in both the way the Institute now operates and provides its vast array of courses, qualifications, and services to its large membership.

Over the coming days the Institute will be celebrating this anniversary with what is normally its major public event, its annual dinner, an event which always attracts the support of all the leading personalities in the profession. London always sends its representative to this event, and this year will be no exception. Ad multos annos dear Institute.

Dr John Consiglio is a Fellow of the Institute of Bankers, former president of the Malta Centre, and served for more than 42 years in the profession.