Malta’s launch of its Institutional Securitisations Market (ISM) later this year will put the country on a competitive footing in the sector with Luxembourg and Dublin, according to Managing Partners Group (MPG), the international asset management group. Jeremy Leach, chief executive officer at MPG, believes the move signifies a huge effort by the Malta Stock Exchange in advancing its services and improving the quality of financial services conducted in the country. The timing of the launch, in which the ISM will become a segment of the Exchange, also coincides with the introduction this year of the new ‘Simple, Transparent and Standardised securitisations’ regulations by the Capital Markets Union, whose legislative measures aim to promote a safe and liquid market for securitisations. Malta’s securitisations framework is highly attractive: no VAT is applied to transactions, no withholding tax is payable on dividends or interest and importantly, there is no taxation on profit made inside securitisations in Malta. “This means that tax-free profits can be accrued inside an ABS to offset the depreciation of the underlying assets, which reduces the default risk,” Mr Leach said. However, Mr Leach believes that Malta’s securitisations could be more attractive if they were to drop the requirement for securitisations to have a trustee overseeing them. “Many of the transactions involving the underlying assets within securitisations are esoteric, so getting someone with the specialist knowledge can be a difficult task,” he said. “Ireland requires this but Luxembourg does not, which gives it a major advantage.” MPG held a seminar in London for accountants and fund managers to showcase Malta as a domicile for debt capital markets within the EU. Speaking at the seminar, Stephanie Galea, head of business development and marketing at the MSE, said: “The ISM will be a regulated and very  specialised market for institutional investors. “We anticipate that it will be attractive to those issuers looking for a less expensive alternative to other markets but still with high professional standards and a comprehensive range of services to give issuers and investors a one-stop shop in this sector.” Ivan Grech, head of business development at FinanceMalta, told delegates at the seminar that Malta’s legal and regulatory framework made it highly accessible and business-friendly while its highly educated workforce, robust and developed operational infrastructure, cost-competitiveness and political and economic stability provided a safe jurisdiction. “Malta’s GDP growth is among the highest in the EU and its unemployment is the lowest,” he said. “The country’s financial services industry is driven by an ecosystem of sector diversity.” MPG opened an office in Malta in 2015 to launch a securitisation platform for the issuance of assetbacked securities by its asset management and third party buyside clients.  A key factor in this decision was Malta’s Securitisation Law, which is the most up to date and pre-empts a lot of the issues encountered by the ageing laws in competing jurisdictions and has established the country as a leading European Union jurisdiction for the issue of asset backed securities.