Licensing Malta

In Mal­ta, var­i­ous activ­i­ties are sub­ject to licens­ing and super­vi­so­ry over­sight. The best known exam­ples include finan­cial ser­vices and gam­ing activ­i­ties. In both cas­es, licens­ing is a com­plex pro­ce­dure, and licens­es will not be issued with­out first hav­ing suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed strict scruti­ny review.

Financial Licensing in Malta is Subject to Intense Review

The Mal­tese Finan­cial Ser­vices Author­i­ty (MFSA) is respon­si­ble for all finan­cial licens­ing in Mal­ta (e.g., licens­ing finan­cial advi­sors, finan­cial or insur­ance bro­kers, invest­ment funds or plat­forms or even in regard issuance of a bank­ing license). Each licens­ing appli­ca­tion is dealt with indi­vid­u­al­ly on a case-by-case basis. That means that there is no uni­form process accord­ing to which one might be assigned to a cer­tain ser­vice sec­tor. Rather, the author­i­ties will pre-review each appli­ca­tion and then review the fol­low­ing items in a sub­se­quent pro­ce­dure last­ing at least 12 months: the busi­ness case, each involved per­son, each sup­pli­er, each account, risk man­age­ment, com­pli­ance rules, the KYC-rules and sub­stance in Mal­ta, etc. In short, the entire enter­prise is sub­ject­ed to intense review and analy­sis. All involved per­sons must sub­mit their CV’s, police clear­ance cer­tifi­cates, bank ref­er­ences, and aca­d­e­m­ic and pro­fes­sion­al cer­ti­fi­ca­tions. Addi­tion­al, the author­i­ties active­ly research crim­i­nal records and the sub­mit­ted ref­er­ences.  All in all, there­fore, an appli­ca­tion can eas­i­ly amount to a few hun­dred pages. Dr. Wern­er & Part­ner will sup­port and accom­pa­ny you through the entire licens­ing process and, where nec­es­sary, will involve addi­tion­al part­ners.

Gaming License in Malta with Good Reputation

Gam­ing licens­es are also issued on a case-by-case basis, where­by the process is more clear­ly struc­tured giv­en the high­ly devel­oped reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work. Still, all involved per­sons are required to sub­mit a con­glom­er­ate of doc­u­men­ta­tion. The real hur­dle in this process, which is often­times under­es­ti­mat­ed, is of a tech­ni­cal nature. The respec­tive gam­ing sys­tem (e.g., front-end, back-end, ran­dom num­ber gen­er­a­tor, con­nec­tion to a pay­ment proces­sor) includ­ing the appli­ca­tion struc­ture and serv­er struc­ture must already be par­tial­ly com­plete or at least in devel­op­ment; oth­er­wise, licens­ing in Mal­ta can­not begin. Where­as there may be numer­ous providers in Mal­ta offer­ing “turnkey” sys­tems, these must still be adjust­ed and opti­mized, which in prac­tice may take weeks or months to achieve.

Malta Gaming License: Different Types of Licenses

The type of Mal­tese license issued is based on the under­ly­ing offer­ing, such as casi­no, bet­ting or pool bet­ting or pro­vid­ing a plat­form. It is impor­tant for all inter­est­ed par­ties to be ful­ly aware of the fact that the entire mar­ket, and espe­cial­ly its legal and reg­u­la­to­ry com­po­nents, is con­stant­ly chang­ing. That means that under cer­tain cir­cum­stances oper­a­tors with a Mal­tese license may be required to obtain licens­ing in anoth­er juris­dic­tion, as well, as is the case for exam­ple in the UK, Italy, Den­mark and France. Oth­er coun­tries may soon fol­low, where­by one can assume that it will be eas­i­er to obtain any fur­ther licens­ing if one has already obtained a Mal­tese license. From a reg­u­la­to­ry stand­point, Mal­tese “Remote Gam­ing Licens­es” enjoy a high rep­u­ta­tion. Dr. Wern­er & Part­ner can help you in regard to all aspects of Mal­tese gam­ing licens­ing.