Malta’s premier financial industry event, the Risk, Compliance and ESG Conference 2026, will take place on 4-6 March 2026 at Hilton Malta, hosted by the Malta Stock Exchange. Professionals from both the public and private sectors will come together to explore the latest trends, regulatory developments and practical approaches shaping the future of governance and compliance. The conference will cover a diverse range of topics, fresh insights and new perspectives across important areas including:
- Risk Management
- Compliance and Regulatory Affairs
- ESG and Social Impact
- Cybersecurity
- Anti-Money Laundering (AML)
- Digital Assets
- RegTech
Exactpro has been successfully supporting the industry’s technology transformation for over 16 years and is delighted to support the event as a Platinum Sponsor. The Exactpro team – Iosif Itkin, Ian Salmon and Anna Maria Lukina – will attend the conference to catch up with participants and introduce them how Exactpro’s AI-enabled software testing approach is used to enhance the quality, operational resilience, stability, capacity and availability of critical financial infrastructures globally.
Sessions Featuring Exactpro Experts:
Day 1 | 14:00–14:50 | Breakout Session
Ian Salmon
Business Development, Exactpro
Ian Salmon will moderate the breakout session ‘Banking vs. Blockchain: How Will Stablecoins and Crypto Evolve?’
As digital assets and traditional finance continue to converge, stablecoins and cryptocurrencies are at the centre of a debate about the future of money. This session will explore how banks and blockchain innovators view the evolution of these instruments, examining opportunities for efficiency, inclusion, and innovation alongside concerns around regulation, stability, and systemic risk. Panellists will discuss the role of central banks, the potential for stablecoins in cross-border payments, and how regulatory frameworks are shaping adoption. Attendees will gain a clearer perspective on whether crypto and banking will ultimately compete, coexist, or integrate to create a new financial ecosystem.
Panellists:
- Sabeena Ahmed Liconte, Head of Legal and Chief Compliance Officer, Americas, ICBC Standard Bank Group
- James Farrugia, Partner, Ganado Advocates
- Camilleri Preziosi
Day 2 | 15:15–16:00 | Plenary Session
Iosif Itkin
Co-CEO & Co-Founder, Exactpro
Iosif Itkin will moderate the plenary session on ‘Supervising Artificial Intelligence'.
This panel session will focus on the supervision of artificial intelligence (AI) in financial services, addressing the evolving regulatory landscape and key supervisory challenges. Topics include the development of AI-specific guidelines and frameworks, risk management and ethical considerations, and ensuring transparency and accountability in AI algorithms. Panelists will discuss the implications of AI for consumer protection, market integrity, and financial stability, as well as strategies for effective oversight in a rapidly advancing technological environment. The session will also explore international coordination and best practices for supervising AI-driven innovations in finance.
Panellists:
- Natacha Lord, Global Head Model Risk Management, Rabobank
The full list of panelists will be announced shortly.
About Exactpro
Exactpro is an independent provider of AI-enabled software testing services for financial sector organisations. Our clients are exchanges, post-trade platform operators, and banks across 20 countries. Our area of expertise comprises protocol-based testing of matching engines, market data, market surveillance, clearing and settlement systems, payments APIs. We help our clients to decrease time to market, maintain regulatory compliance, improve scalability, latency and operational resiliency. Exactpro is involved in a variety of transformation programmes related to large-scale cloud and DLT implementations at systemically important organisations.
Our approaches leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to help harness the power of exploratory data analysis and big data analytics to assist in the generation of test ideas and the interpretation of test results, supported by advanced execution capabilities of the th2 frameworks suite.
Founded in 2009, the Exactpro Group is headquartered in the UK and operates delivery centres in Georgia, Sri Lanka, Armenia, and the UK and representative offices in the US, Canada, and Italy, and a global distributed network of consultants.
Are you interested in gaining a deeper understanding of your system, reducing costs, accelerating time to market, while maintaining operational resiliency and regulatory compliance? Visit us at exactpro.com.