A banker by profession, Roderick Psaila, Managing Director of Bridge Advice, spent 30 years working in banking before setting up his boutique firm in 2021 and putting his experience to good use.

“I spent 18 years at the Central Bank of Malta and a brief stint at the ECB in Frankfurt, then, in 2008 I took the plunge into industry, where I was involved in the licence applications and setting up of three banks locally,” he explains. He served as CEO for six years with the third bank until 2020.

At that point, Roderick affirms, “I felt it was time to start a new career and make use of the expertise and experience I had obtained during the first phase of my journey.”

And thus, Bridge Advice was born – a boutique advisory firm that provides specialised consultancy services in the fields of governance and controls, regulatory compliance, risk advisory, financial crime compliance, business advisory and talent management.

Like any other start-up, Roderick  admits, the first year was testing, but hard work and perseverance paid off. “We remained focused and faithful to our model and beliefs. By the end of the first year, we managed to turn the corner, and 2022 built on that,” he reveals, maintaining that the business procured this year has been a culmination of the seeds planted in those first two years.  

He is also pleased to have onboarded more experts to the team of consultants, seeing the number of consultants lending their expertise to Bridge more than doubling since 2022. “People like to work with us; the Bridge model is appreciated, and quality experts attract more quality to Bridge. At present, Bridge comprises experts in regulation, accounting, risk management, auditing, banking, payments, IT risk, economics, financial engineering/modelling, legal, banking operations, card systems and occupational psychology,” he smiles.

Expanding on the company’s landmarks so far, Roderick says that Bridge has been quite successful in gaining the trust of several entrepreneurs who have engaged the firm to manage their licence application with the MFSA, and while they keep the Authorisations Unit busy, their main landmark came about recently, when Bridge was engaged to start a banking licence application in Malta.

“Every application we handle, we do with passion as if it were the first one, but a banking licence is special because of the complexities, the involvement with the ECB along with the MFSA, and the difficulty to take it to the end and be successful,” he maintains, adding, “we’ve done it before – myself and the team of advisors at Bridge, both in Malta and abroad – and we are always confident that we can do it again.  Success is what drives us forward.”

When it comes to supporting businesses who want to obtain a licence, what really gives Bridge Advice the edge over other firms is that they not only support but manage an application ‘from A to Z’, Roderick says.

“At the outset, we organise brainstorming workshops with the client, where five or six of our consultants are present so we can understand what business model the client wants and advise on the regulatory requirements to lead to a successful licensing process ,” he explains, affirming that, during the application, Bridge handles the business plan, financial projections, assumptions document, IT questionnaire, the application itself and other ancillary documents in such a way that submission to the MFSA would include over 60 documents.

“Our main edge emanates from the fact that most of our consultants at Bridge were either practitioners or regulators – and when I say practitioners, it’s professionals that have run banks or financial institutions, all of them holding Chief Officer positions in a previous life. It comes natural for us to tweak a payments model or advise on the best way to promote governance without hindering  business because we’ve been there and done that,” Roderick adds.

Plus, he points out, they do everything in-house. “There is one person from Bridge who sponsors the application, and the contributions from the other consultants complete the package,” he says.

Looking ahead at his plans moving forward, Roderick intends for Bridge to consolidate the banking vertical in 2024, and considers adding another vertical to the list of niche services, on top of Regulatory Compliance, Financial Crime Compliance and GRC advisory. 

“It is expected that we will need additional input and further contributions from our consultants in order to maintain the standards set from the outset,” he notes, concluding, “one thing will not change though: Bridge will remain boutique, we will not go for the mass market and we will continue to offer chief-officer-level advice to firms regulated in the banking, financial institutions and ancillary sectors – the sort of high-level expert advice that we are becoming renowned for.”