LA VALLETTA (MALTA) (ITALPRESS/MNA) – Finance Minister Clyde Caruana has expressed doubts about the offer received from Hungarian bank Otp to acquire HSBC Bank Malta, the Maltese subsidiary of British multinational banking and financial services company HSBC. Malta needs “more banking competition, not less,” Caruana told the Times of Malta, adding that it is essential to close the deal with a bank that has a “good reputation”.
Yesterday, the Times of Malta also revealed that Otp was among the “favorites” in the race for the acquisition. The only other known bidder to date is a local operator, Aps Bank, which confirmed its interest late last year. At the moment there is no confirmation of interest from other banks. The Hungarian OTP was included in 2023 by the Kiev Anti-Corruption Agency in the list of “international sponsors” of the war because it continued to operate in Russia even after the beginning of the conflict.
The Budapest banking group released a statement yesterday in which it clarified that it had been included in that list for “reasons that have proven to be completely false,” and that it had subsequently been removed from the list. Minister Caruana also appeared to raise doubts on the second option, relating to the local bank Aps. Again according to the Times of Malta, to a “veiled” reference to Aps the minister responded by insisting that Malta’s financial sector needs “more banking competition than there is today, not less”.
– photo Flickr via CC 2.0 –
(ITALPRESS).
