Bank of Valletta plc (BOV) is a Maltese bank and financial services company headquartered in Santa Venera. It is the oldest established financial services provider in Malta and one of the largest. As of 2014, the bank had 44 branches, 6 regional business centres, a head office, and a wealth management arm located around the Maltese Islands. It has representative offices in the United Kingdom, Australia, Belgium and Italy. History With the advent of British rule in Malta, a group of English and Maltese merchants established Anglo-Maltese Bank, which commenced operations on 23 June 1809. Banco di Malta was established on 1 May 1812. Anglo-Maltese Bank and Banco di Malta began early on to issue their own promissory banknotes (payable at sight) at first in Scudi denominations and subsequently in Sterling. The third bank to be set up in Malta was B. Tagliaferro e Figli, which too was founded in 1812. The fourth bank established in Malta was Josef Scicluna et Fils, set up in 1830. These four banks would eventually merge, in stages, to form the National Bank of Malta. This was done in order to have strength in numbers at a time when there was a fear that the government was after the private banks . Anglo-Maltese Bank and Banco di Malta merged in January 1946 under the name National Bank of Malta. In 1949, Sciclunas Bank affiliated to the newly established bank. Twenty years after that, i.e., in 1969, National Bank of Malta merged with Tagliaferro Bank through an exchange of shares. In 1973, following a run on the National Bank of Malta and its subsidiary Tagliaferro Bank, the Maltese government after Parliament passed the 'National and Tagliaferro Banks (Temporary Provision) Act 1973'. The run on the bank is widely considered to have been orchestrated by the then government in an attempt to take control of the banking sector in Malta. On 22 March 1974 the Prime Minister Dom Mintoff announced the setting up of the Bank of Valletta. The new Bank took over the assets and liabilities of the National Bank of Malta, and commenced operations on 25 March 1974. The banking reform was described as a "hijack" by Adrain Busietta, as it created a number of controversies for those who had assets. The National Bank's liabilities were artificially inflated by 151% by the government in an attempt to make it appear as insolvent. The Government,