The Maltese Financial Service Authority (MFSA) have confirmed that they are having ongoing discussions with the UK’s Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) with regards to being a suitable jurisdiction for QROPS (Qualifying Recognized Overseas Pension Schemes).
In principle, HMRC appear to have agreed that pension schemes that are established in Malta and regulated by the MFSA may be considered as QROPS. However, as with pension providers in all other jurisdictions, a scheme administrator of each scheme has to apply to the UK’s HMRC for QROPS approval.
For UK expat pension members, a new jurisdiction for QROPS funds is always an interesting development and for specialist QROPS advisers, such as Global QROPS Ltd, QROPS schemes in Malta would be an additional consideration in their advice process.
At the time of the writing of this news item, there are currently no QROPS in Malta on the HMRC QROPS list. As soon as Global QROPS Ltd are aware of specific schemes that have become available, we will of course keep potential clients up to date, as when schemes are approved.
Moving forward, it will also be interesting to establish the benefits that are potentially available from QROPS in Malta and if the local rules can benefit QROPS clients.
Every QROPS provider, in countries throughout the world, has benefits that could be specific to their scheme and favourable by comparison with UK pension benefits. It will be interesting to see what unique benefits Maltese QROPS have to offer.
