It’s a small Island in the English Channel, but Jersey has built itself a reputation as one of the world’s leading international finance centres. Its history of political and economic stability—and a sophisticated and comprehensive legal system—have kept Jersey at the forefront of global finance for more than 50 years.
In 2001, Jersey Finance was established to represent and promote Jersey as an international financial centre of excellence. Finance is the largest industry in Jersey and although the Island itself is geographically small, it has a large financial footprint, managing a little over £1.2 trillion sterling in assets.
Bucking the trend of a shrinking global financial services market, Jersey has seen growth in recent years and at Citywealth magazine’s 2015 ‘International Financial Centre Awards,’ Jersey was named ‘International Finance Centre of the Year’ for the fourth consecutive year. The future of Jersey’s financial industry looks extremely bright, and CEO Geoff Cook thinks this is in part due to the Island’s approach to global expansion.
“I think internationally, banking is shrinking,” Geoff says. “If you look at the global banking industry, a combination of a much higher cost of capital, a much higher cost of doing business and much greater regulation, are driving a degree of re-appraisal of risks, which has meant that most global banks are shrinking back into either regional-specialist or sector-specialist service providers. You’ll find that many of the large banks will also have a much shorter list of countries in which they are operating.