Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1097443
Media Monitoring - Intelligence - Analysis www.corporatedispatch.com €1.50 THURSDAY 28 MARCH 2019 • ISSUE 1 WWW.BUSINESSTODAY.COM.MT SAVIOUR BALZAN LAST week, Lombard Bank chairman Michael Bonello a former governor of the Central Bank said it was in the best interest of all stakeholders for the Na- tional Development and Social Fund to divest its shares to the public. Shares held in Lombard Bank by the fund fi - nanced by the sale of citizenship should be sold to the public, the bank's board of directors insisted. " e board believes that it would be in the best interests of all stakeholders if the shares were to be widely spread among the public as this would en- sure that the bank remained focused on serving the Maltese economy in the long-term," Bonello wrote in his intro- duction barely eight months after the Government fund bought 49% of the bank's shareholding. But a senior and very reliable govern- ment offi cial told BusinessToday that Government will only sell to a strategic partner and not the public. e same source expressed concern that Bonello's announcement was made through a remark in the annual report. " e NDSF fund is essentially a gov- ernment body, we have no directors on Lombard bank and no say. It would be interesting to see the operation of the bank but this is beyond the scope of our presence of shareholders now. PAGE 2 Government plans to sell to strategic partner not public LOMBARD BANK SHAREHOLDING: SEE ALSO: Passport fund head doesn't exclude selling NDSF shares in Lombard Bank to public, but says it raises issues PAGE 2 LIAM CARTER CERTAIN provisions of the General Data Protection Regula- tion (GDPR), must be tweaked to become more applicable to Ar- tifi cial Intelligence applications, the chair of the Malta.AI Task- force has revealed. Speaking to BusinessToday, Wayne Grixti said that "certain aspects of GDPR must be looked at and revised a to become more applicable to AI applications." Europe's almost year-old law tightened the rules on data pro- tection and privacy for all indi- viduals within the EU bloc and since AI applications have to feed on large chunks of data to grow and be successful, certain provi- sions GDPR which regulate data collection and consumption are in direct confl ict with such tech- nology. Asked if GDPR is facilitating an unlevel playing fi eld for Mal- ta and UE countries who have to compete against AI savvy states like China who are not bound to follow similar thorough legisla- tion, Grixti said that states like China have a big advantage in harnessing data. PAGE 4 'Metro only possible if population grows or taxes increase' GDPR 'must be tweaked' to become more applicable to AI PAGE 3