The first Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery in the Financial Services Sector seminar in Malta has been a huge success. The Financial Services sector has responded positively to the call of the Malta Institute of Management and the Malta Union of Bank Employees.

The seminar was launched by Reuben Buttigieg., Chairman of MIM training division, which is heavily investing in education programmes in the financial services sector. Reuben Buttigieg analysed the growth of the sector over the last years and has assessed certain weaknesses that Malta needs to address in order to continue to grow in this area.  The analysis focused amongst others on Malta legislatio, implementation of Directives, strategy vs legislation, innovation, Business Continuity and trustworthiness in the sector.

The seminar proceeded in analysing the Business Continuity and Disaster recovery and the analysis of the legislation and Directives in place with respect to this area. Mr. Malcolm Cheshire gave the people and Human resources perspective in Business Continuity whilst Mr. Joseph Agius from Bank of Valletta explained the delicate issues from an IT Perspective. Mr. Joseph Demanuele, Chief Operations Officer at MFSA gave an explanation of all the legislation and Directives in place and how the MFSA ensures that there are Business Continuity plans are in place within the sector.

The seminar proceeded with a discussion addressing various other issues. Cultural issues were one of the main concerns addressed by the sector. Furthermore, the analysis of possible competitive advantage of the larger organisations over smaller organisations in implementing certain legislation was also addressed, particularly with respect to Basel 2.

MIM and MUBE expressed once again their commitment to strengthen their collaboration in order to ensure having a continuous professional development programme. The collaboration between MUBE and MIM will create the necessary fora and platform to assist in gearing up even more for the development of the sector. Both organisations have been discussing with other bodies in order to team up in this mission. This collaboration is a first of its kind in Malta and both organisations highly believe in it.

Seminar Presentations and Information Material:

Mr. Malcolm Cheshire

Presentation

Business Continuity Institute - Good Practice Guidelines 2007