Malta to employ blockchain for national business registry

Malta is one of the latest countries to announce the planned deployment of blockchain in one of its services, and in this particular case, it will be the Malta Business Registry (MBR).

In a report by Malta Independent, it was noted that Malta’s Junior Minister for Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation in the Government, Silvio Schembri has announced the new initiative. This revelation was made during the inauguration of the MBR’s new premises alongside Prime Minister Dr. Joseph Muscat.

“The premises will serve as the beating heart of the technological activity in Malta. It will reflect our drive to remain at the forefront of the digital revolution, our commitment to embrace new emergent technology and give it room to flourish in our strong ecosystem,” Schembri said about the new development.

It's worth noting that the MBR came as an offshoot of Malta’s Company of Registries (RoC). As to the value of the investment, PM Muscat himself lauded the new development. He placed a particular emphasis on how this initiative is a display of the government’s commitment to progress.

“The fact that now there’s this Agency in place shows the Government’s commitment strengthen regulator’s work. The Malta Business Registry will complement the modernization process the MFSA has embarked upon whilst this entity will be able to move forward through digitalization processes where even here Distributed Ledger Technology will be used in its day to day operations,” he said.

This project was reported by the outlet Zeta, as well, where the piece was then attached to a social media post by the official account of the Italian-Maltese Chamber of Commerce.

This marks just one of a number of instances where governments are beginning to move towards decentralization with blockchain. It is expected that in due time, practically all government services will run on the network.