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Mario Mizzi

Castille Palace at Night
Maltese Residency for Investment Family Offices ImmigrationInvestment Services & Funds

Maltese Residency for Investment Family Offices

Investment family offices that are setting up an investment structure in Malta (or even a branch thereof) have been given an additional incentive to choose Malta as an EU base due to a new residency law interpretation. On the  3rd of December, the MFSA issued a circular together with Malta’s immigration authorities titled “Joint MFSA and Residency Malta Agency Communication on a New Residency Scheme for Family Offices”. The circular explicitly “focuses on granting residence permits to individuals forming part of a family office structure”, notably ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs) and qualifying senior employees. This initiative is intended to enhance…
Mario Mizzi and Julian Fenech Adami
5th December 2025
Valletta Skyline
Malta’s Shariah-Compliant Funds Framework Investment Services & Funds

Malta’s Shariah-Compliant Funds Framework

Malta’s recent revamp of its Shariah-compliant investment funds framework is a strategic move to attract investors and asset managers from the Middle East and North Africa (‘MENA’), including family offices from the Gulf region (‘GCC’) to the EU’s southernmost jurisdiction. The Malta Financial Services Authority (‘MFSA’) informed the industry through a circular about this update in November 2025. This update continues positioning the islands as a bridge between Europe and Sharia finance. Being EU and Eurozone currency member, Malta offers MENA investors a seamless point of entry into the EU’s single financial market. For Middle Eastern fund promoters looking to…
Mario Mizzi
24th November 2025
Parliament Building by Renzo Piano in Valletta, Malta
Malta Aligns Investment Laws With EU Prudential Regime Investment Services & Funds

Malta Aligns Investment Laws With EU Prudential Regime

The Maltese legislator’s recent publication of five amending legal notices on 29 July 2025 marks a continuous alignment of the Investment Services Act (Chapter 370 of the Laws of Malta) with the European Union’s prudential regime for investment firms. Each of the five legal notices (L.N.) addresses a discrete lacuna that had emerged once the Investment Firms Regulation (IFR) and Investment Firms Directive (IFD) began to apply across the Union earlier this decade. Legal Notice 152 of 2025 amends Malta’s rules on supervisory consolidation under the IFD, refining the criteria by which the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) is designated as consolidating…
Mario Mizzi
30th July 2025
Highest EU Court in Luxembourg
CJEU preliminary rulings as a path towards further investment law harmonisation Investment Services & FundsLitigation & Dispute Resolution

CJEU preliminary rulings as a path towards further investment law harmonisation

The preliminary reference procedure under Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) constitutes a mechanism by which the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ensures the uniform interpretation and application of Union law across the Member States. In the specific context of EU financial regulation, this procedural instrument assumes a distinctive function: that of enabling organic harmonisation within the internal market. By facilitating a judicial dialogue between national courts and the CJEU, the preliminary ruling mechanism operates as a decentralised yet effective method of aligning national interpretations of key provisions within directives…
Mario Mizzi
14th July 2025
Person using a credit card
Payments Insights #5 – When CASPs Overlap PSPs Banking & FinanceFinTech

Payments Insights #5 – When CASPs Overlap PSPs

The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) provides in Article 70(4) that a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) offering payment services related to its crypto activities must either obtain a payment institution authorisation itself or partner with an authorised payment service provider (PSP) under PSD2. This reflects the “dual nature” of certain crypto-assets: notably, MiCA classifies e-money tokens (i.e. stablecoins) as electronic money, meaning they are not only crypto-assets under MiCA but also “funds” under the Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2). In practice, this dual status raised uncertainty about whether CASPs dealing in stablecoins need a separate PSD2 licence in addition…
Katya Tua and Mario Mizzi
4th July 2025
Tokenisation of Funds
Fintech Insights #11 –
Tokenising Fund Units FinTechInvestment Services & Funds

Fintech Insights #11 –
Tokenising Fund Units

Malta has uniquely positioned itself at the crossroads of EU legislative initiatives of investment funds and digital assets. The island has steadily built a forward-thinking fintech ecosystem whilst at the same time maintained an investment fund framework which is comparable to those with the EU’s largest jurisdictions by assets-under-management (“AUM”).  This makes Malta the ideal EU jurisdiction to set up a tokenised investment fund. In June 2025, the Malta Financial Services Authority (“MFSA”) published a detailed ‘Position Paper on Tokenisation of Fund Units’ (the “Position Paper”), reflecting Malta’s ongoing pioneering approach to digital finance and asset management. The paper emphasises…
Katya Tua and Mario Mizzi
18th June 2025