Lorraine Vella promoted to Head of Capital Markets Supervision at MFSA

Lorraine Vella, a long-standing employee of the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) has been promoted to Head of Capital Markets Supervision.

This comes as the MFSA announces the establishment of its Capital Markets Supervision Function, effective from 1st May.

The newly set up function within the MFSA’s Supervisory Directorate is intended to bring a fresh focus to the markets and listing space and will drive the implementation of the Capital Markets Strategy.

Ms Vella had joined the authority as Senior Manager within the Securities and Markets Supervision Unit back in January 2011.

Seven years after joining, she was promoted to Deputy Head within the same unity. Ms Vella held said role for just over four years, up until her latest promotion.

A consultation on the Capital Markets Supervision Function had been launched in 2021, aimed at initiating a discussion with the industry as to how Malta’s capital markets can be taken to the next level, mainly through five strategic pillars.

Said function will be responsible for the regulation and oversight of activities in capital markets, including:

• The processing of applications for admissibility to listing on regulated markets in Malta;
• The approvals of prospectuses in terms of the Prospectus Regulation;
• The supervision of the continuing obligations of companies having securities listed on regulated markets in Malta;
• The supervision of markets to identify any market abuse;
• The authorisation and supervision of trading venues and central securities depositories;
• The supervision of financial and non-financial entities falling under the scope of EMIR and SFTR;
• The data quality assurance of transaction reports submitted in terms of MiFIR;
• The supervision of administrators, contributors and users of benchmarks in terms of the Benchmarks Regulation.
  
  

The function will be also actively involved in various other initiatives such as Crowdfunding, the DLT MTF Pilot Regime and Green Bonds.

As a result, the formerly known Securities and Markets Supervision Function has been renamed Investment Services Supervision Function.

This organisational restructuring will allow Doreen Balzan, Head of Investment Services Supervision, to cater for the demands of this growing sector and focus on the implementation of the Asset Management Strategy.