Bank of Valletta (BOV) is considered Malta’s largest bank. In October 2020, Gordon Cordina was appointed as Chairman of the bank. Presently, 25% of the Bank’s equity is held by the Government of Malta, UniCredit S.p.A. holds 10.20%, and the remaining 64.80% is in the hands of the general public. Fintelegram can reveal and publish proof that the BOV Chairman is a co-owner of Malta-registered E-Cubed Consultants Limited. He owns 50% of this company. E-Cubed Consultants has been receiving around €3,500 per month from the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) for so-called consultancy services.
The remaining 50% of the shares of E-Cubed Consultants are held by Stephanie Vella, who has been appointed by the Government as a Governor of the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA).
In 2019, the Bank of Valletta was closing accounts of online betting firms. However, a few weeks later, this decision was reversed. Whilst serving as BOV’s Chairman, Gordon Cordina (LinkedIn) said in an interview with Times of Malta that gaming is still an essential part of Malta’s economy. However, during the said interview, he did not divulge his consultancy role to the Malta Gaming Authority. Bank of Valletta has lost almost all of its correspondent banks over the past years, and its share price decreased considerably.
The MGA was hit by several scandals, including hefty direct orders dished out by its former CEO, Joseph Cuschieri, who, together with his friend and colleague Edwina Licari, traveled to Las Vegas with Yorgen Fenech, the alleged mastermind of a journalist’s assassination. Edwina Licari was hand-picked by Cuschieri for a €100,000 salary job at the MFSA. Carl Brincat is the current CEO at MGA, referring to due diligence procedures as a “shitshow.”
Another controversial figure on the Bank of Valletta’s board of directors and its buddy network is Alfred Mifsud. He resigned in disgrace from his role as deputy director at the Malta Central Bank a year after facing corruption claims first revealed by slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Mifsud’s former partner, Anna Zelbst, the mother of his two children, alleged that he received bribes when he was chairman of Mid-Med Bank. The European Central Bank has accused BOV of failing to detect or address risks involving thousands of payments.
