According to the ECB, the number of financial institutions throughout the Eurozone has decreased by 6%. To date, there are 7,059 of such institutions as opposed to the 7,533 of a year ago. These statistics cover a variety of institutions, such as commercial and savings banks, post office banks, credit unions etc. In Slovakia alone, there was a 30% fall while in Luxembourg, the decline was of 22%.
Very significantly, Malta was one of the only two countries in the EU which saw a significant increase. Malta experienced an increase of 3%, while Portugal had a rise of 0.6%. This is evidence that Malta is at the forefront of the regulation of such institutions, a factor which is greatly abetted by the fact that the MFSA is very flexible and adopts an open-door policy where the establishment of new business in Malta is greatly encouraged.
