“European Sector Stability” a recent report drawn up by the European Central Bank, has declared Malta’s banking system as the most solvent in the entire European Union in 2008. Whilst other European banking systems struggled during the past year, the solvency ratio of the Maltese banking system was above average with a ratio of 17.69% compared with the European Union average of 11.7%. Malta’s Tier 1 ratio stood at 15% whilst the EU’s Tier 1 solvency ratio stood at 8.3%. This follows Malta being held as the world’s 10th soundest bank by the World Economic Forum in October this year.

Malta’s sound banking system placed amongst the banking systems of Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland. Also, Malta was one of the few European countries that did not have to resort to bank bail-outs.