Sven Hughes

British politicians have some lessons to learn from Jersey

Let’s be honest: when most of us think about Jersey the words ‘tax’ and ‘avoidance’ come quickly to mind. Okay, so maybe Bergerac, cows and potatoes first, but financial chicanery certainly isn’t far behind.

That was certainly my association when I got a call from Jersey Finance Limited (JFL), the financial sector’s industry body. They were looking to review how they communicated the Crown Dependency’s financial services offering and wanted a strategic partner to help share these messages.

I have to admit that I knew next-to-nothing about the largest of the Channel Islands, nestled between England and France. A year on, I know a little more about the Bailiwick of Jersey, to give it its proper name. What’s more, I now fully recognise the importance of this International Financial Centre to so much of the City of London’s vital work.

Far from being some backwater fiddle-factory, Jersey is in fact at the vanguard of a fiercely competitive offshore financial services industry; setting itself apart from other centres such as Hong Kong, Luxembourg and Cayman.

This is a niche sector in which regulation has become a badge of honour, rather than the inconvenience of old. Modern clients want to know that they are dealing with leading legal and regulatory frameworks that are robustly underpinned by national and international political safeguards. IFCs have to demonstrate transparency, quality standards and expertise to gain the trust of investors, and Jersey is widely regarded as leading the international pack.

So, what’s with the out-of-date perceptions of Jersey? How come our mainland politicians struggle to see the positive impact of quality centres like Jersey as we set out our national post-Brexit stall? The brief from JFL was simple: ‘help us to better understand what people think we do, and then help them to understand what we actually do’.

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