My esteemed Chairman, Jason Laity, mused at our recent Global Horizons update to industry, that it was his fifth such event as Chair of Jersey Finance – and that much had changed over those five years.
Back in 2020, for instance, we were on the cusp of a pandemic; ChatGPT hadn’t been launched; Britain had a Queen; Boris Johnson was Prime Minister; and the UK was only just exiting the EU.
It prompted me to think about change and where Jersey’s IFC sits in the context of the changing world around us.
And we can extrapolate that further: we are now a quarter of the way through the 21st century. 25 years ago, Tony Blair was in his first stint as Prime Minister of Great Britain, Facebook hadn’t yet been launched, the JFSC was only two years old, and, while our industry has a history stretching back some years , Jersey Finance hadn’t even been established (our 25th anniversary is next year!).
What’s clear is that things are changing at an accelerating pace. Our Global Horizons event gave us a chance to reflect on our achievements over the past year and look ahead to what’s on the horizon – and our horizons should always be fixed on the long game.
Stability
2024 was clearly a year of uncertainty and instability. Massive political change, notably in the UK and US, wars in Europe and the Middle East, energy supply chain disruption, inflation and market volatility. All of this defined our year.
And – particularly when it is sudden or unexpected – change can bring uncertainty. And uncertainty now seems to be the norm, rather than the exception.
It’s why Jersey’s stable and certain platform – which we stressed a great deal at Global Horizons – is so important as part of our proposition to global investors. In Jersey they find a body of case law that is tried and tested, a platform that is reliable, regulation that makes sense, an infrastructure that works, and expertise that is really second to none.
This gives global investors, institutional and private clients, confidence and reassurance, and that is highly valuable.
And it’s why the highly positive findings of the MONEYVAL assessment last year, which affirmed Jersey’s robust and proportionate response to the fighting of financial crime, was so important. It gave credence to our reputation as a financial services safe harbour.
That focus on robust regulation is unlikely to wane anytime soon – the concept of the ‘permacrisis’ is going nowhere fast. As new UK and US governments completely undo and strip out the work of the previous administrations, it’s clear that investors are in for further uncertainty in the years ahead.
Innovative shift
But from our own finance industry perspective, I see an exciting shift as we look ahead to 2025 and beyond, towards greater innovation across our service lines, our product offering and our global ambitions.
In fact, that focus on innovation is critical both in differentiating us in a competitive sector, but also in remaining agile and adaptable in the face of constant change.
For example, we are evolving our overseas markets strategy this year to focus increasingly on the US private wealth space. Having been very successful in bringing our alternative funds expertise to the US market over the past five years, now is the right time to expand that and venture into a new market sector that offers huge potential.
In addition, we are also making strides in embracing the transformational potential of tokenisation, evolving our Limited Liability Company and Limited Partnership legislation to maintain our IFC’s appeal as a funds hub, deepening the industry’s adoption of fintech solutions, trailblazing in terms of sustainable finance capabilities, and exploring new opportunities in the insurance sector.
It is also through this ‘progress prism’ that Jersey’s ‘Vision 2050’ project has emerged – a new project that aims to look further into the future and envisage the role our industry can play not just in the next year or two, but in decades to come.
As an organisation, we understand that complacency is the death knell of any financial sector and so, last summer, we began looking at what measures we needed to take to ensure our future as a leading financial centre remains secure.
As a piece of work, it has involved a tremendous degree of self-reflection to identify not only our strengths but, more importantly, where there is a need for improvement – conscious of the fact that a lot about the environment we operate in will be outside of our control.
More about the output of this project will become clearer in due course, but to give a flavour, it will undoubtedly incorporate the need for a resilient, skilled workforce – we have already made significant headway in this regard through our ‘Future-Fit Workforce’ programme which, two years in, is encouraging local young people to become excited about working in finance, facilitating greater engagement with schools and supporting the upskilling and reskilling of those already in the industry.
Vision 2050 will also look to establish Jersey as a leader in technology, with partnerships – such as that which we greatly value with Digital Jersey – supporting those ambitions.
So while I am confident that we can implement some new innovative ideas to propel us through the coming year, I am also excited that we have big ambitions that can help us remain competitive and guide us even further into the future.
Understand change
Of course, there will be challenges along the way, but building from our baseline of stability and certainty we have the capacity and vision to expand our reputation into new disciplines and markets, providing a compelling and progressive proposition to investors across the globe.
Things change quickly. And for us to be successful – personally and professionally – we need to understand change, we need to embrace it and we need to ensure that we can adjust to meet its consequences.
If you have time, maybe consider what our world might look like in another 25 years’ time…