Malta Custodian Services

TIMEZONE:Central European Time Zone (UTC+01:00) SIZE OF INDUSTRY:25% Annual Growth EU: Member of the EU and Eurozone FINANCIAL SERVICES FRAMEWORK:EU and OECD Approved GDP GROWTH: 5% in 2016 (NSO) REGULATOR:Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) BANKING SYSTEM:10th Soundest in the World TAX REGIME:EU & OECD compliant

• Foreign custodians can establish branches in Malta
• Foreign Custodians can re-domicile to Malta
• Malta custodians may delegate functions to third parties established outside of Malta
• Full imputation tax system, 5% Effective tax rate
• Cost effective set-up & ongoing costs

The Investment Services Act, 1994 is the main legislative framework for the regulation and supervision of custodians and depositaries providing custody services to collective investment schemes. The law and regulations provide for two types of licences covering fully-fledged custodians and depositary services. Custodians servicing any type of collective investment scheme shall require a Category 4a Investment Services Licence whilst depositaries (depositary lite) require a Category 4b Investment Services Licence - the latter are able to act as depositaries of Alternative Investment Funds (AIF) under the conditions set out in Article 21(3) last paragraph of the AIFMD (Directive 2011/61/EU) or which are subject to the so called ‘depositary lite’ regime under Article 36 of the AIFMD.
 

Key Requirements

• Category 4 Licence;
• Minimum capital of €125,000;
• Application fee of €4,000 is payable to the MFSA upon submission of the draft application, and €10,000 upon obtaining the licence
• Established place of business in Malta, be it shared or fully owned by the custodian;
• The business formation must be made up of three board members, one of which must be based in Malta;
• Must have a Compliance officer and a Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO)