Strong guardrails and innovation ‘are not trade-offs,’ says MFSA COO Ivan Zammit

The Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) Chief Operations Officer (COO), Ivan Zammit, called for decisive action at the Cyber Finance Summit 2025, emphasising the urgent need for both resilience and innovation in an increasingly digital financial landscape.

“As Malta continues to position itself as a testbed for responsible innovation, resilience and innovation are not trade-offs; they’re co-requirements for modern finance,” he warned.

He continued: “If we build strong guardrails, the technologies that challenge us today can become the engines of safer, smarter financial systems.”

MFSA CEO Kenneth Farrugia stressed that cybersecurity is now a necessity, not an option.

“As financial systems grow increasingly interconnected, cooperation at both national and international levels is essential to counteract cyber risks effectively,” he said.

Alan Decelis, MFSA Supervisory ICT and Cybersecurity Head, added that European supervisors must coordinate closely to detect and mitigate ICT risks early, preventing further propagation across financial networks.

The MFSA event convened over 500 international experts at its Cyber Finance Summit 2025.

Held at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, the two-day summit gathered speakers from the European Central Bank, Bank of England, Reserve Bank of India, European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, and leading tech firms including Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Aligne.ai.

Discussions spanned threat landscapes, ICT third-party risk, regulation, and emerging technologies such as AI and Quantum computing.

Featured Image: Ivan Zammit / MFSA