Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who will be charged with money laundering in the magisterial inquiry concerning the privatisation of state hospitals to Vitals Global Healthcare and Steward, reaped over €450,000 in consultancies from private companies between 2020 and 2021
Members-only credit card company with former Labour minister Chris Cardona on payroll is fined and ordered to stop processing payments and prefunding of cards
Luxury cards firm accuses MFSA of ‘putting spokes in wheel’ with new inspection
Ultra-wealthy credit card firm recently fined €373,000 by the FIAU is now facing a renewed inspection by the MFSA
29 December 2020, 1:42pm
by Matthew Vella
The luxury credit card company fined €373,000 by the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit, is holding the Maltese financial regulator MFSA responsible for any damages incurred in business losses due to renewed inspections.
After accusing the FIAU of carrying out a witch-hunt over an impending Moneyval assessment that is haunting Malta’s financial system, Insignia Cards is now accusing the MFSA of making onerous demands over the same management structure it had previously green-lighted.
The requested documents, except for a legal opinion by an established Maltese law firm, were duly submitted by December 18.
However, three days later, a letter from the MFSA said that certain documentation and clarifications had not yet been handed over, even though Insignia insisted that the only missing document was the legal opinion which it had not managed to obtain at short notice, given the Christmas festivities.
It said that the Authority ordered Insignia to stop all processing of payments due by its clients, which had long been handled by Insignia Global Solutions (IGS) based in Hong Kong.
Such funds were needed to pay various service providers, including VISA, Insignia claimed, adding that blocking the processing of payments would mean great financial losses for the company.