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Read Joe’s piece below.

Joe Moynihan, CEO of Jersey Finance, emphasised the importance of Jersey’s stability and certainty against the global backdrop of a challenging year. He said: “The latest figures for the mid-point of 2023 show that funds business in the Island continues to perform well, with the total value of fund assets under management in Jersey now standing at well over £500 bn, and there are more than 200 non-EU managers using Jersey to access EU investor capital. Banking figures are resilient with deposits now standing at just under £150 bn; Jersey businesses are managing around £1.1 tn of global private wealth; and we are seeing sustained high levels of corporate activity. That success has been down to a huge amount of joined-up work on-Island between Jersey Finance, the finance industry, as well as our government and the Jersey Financial Services Commission.

Jersey is a key IFC for economic activity. Moynihan cited research from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), which quantified the full extent of Jersey’s global economic footprint and its contribution to global value chains, through the metrics of GDP, employment and jobs. The report, titled ‘Jersey’s contribution to Global Value Chains’, revealed that Jersey’s financial services industry makes a significant impact on the global economy. Jersey Finance represents more than 170 financial services firms in Jersey, with a global team of experts based in Dubai, Hong Kong SAR, Johannesburg, London, New York, Shanghai and Singapore – the latter of which was the most recent part of Jersey Finance’s expansion in March 2023. On this expansion, Moynihan said: “Singapore is a key complementary finance hub that can help further extend the global reach of Jersey’s financial services industry and bring its corporate, private wealth and alternative funds proposition to growth markets across the South East Asia region.

Moynihan outlined some of the crucial work that Jersey Finance has been doing to promote the island. He said: “We have achieved a considerable amount over the past twelve months – not least in terms of our global connectivity, which really is a differentiator compared to other jurisdictions. Over 2023, we have continued to evolve our overseas engagement programme through our own channels, delivering more than 180 events in markets from the US and Europe to Africa, the Middle East and Asia, while also working collaboratively with partners such as the World Alliance of International Finance Centres and the UN’s Financial Centres for Sustainability (FC4S). We’ve also made a concerted effort to focus on key strategic areas that underpin our leading position as an IFC. Our work on sustainable finance this year saw us complete our second assessment through the FC4S which will help inform our future direction, ensuring we are aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

With technology playing an increasingly critical role at the heart of financial services firms, our work to maintain our fintech capabilities has also been vital. The impact of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the business world has been an important theme for us in 2023. We recently did some research with WealthBriefing on the digitalisation of assets within Jersey’s wealth management sector, which found that private investors are embracing a much closer relationship with the digital environment. Equally, a whitepaper we published with IFI Global on tokenisation sets out the case for digital assets and tokenisation to significantly transform the cross-border alternative funds space too. We have also hosted a number of tech-focussed events for finance firms in Jersey including our Demo Day and our collaboration with Digital Jersey to launch Jersey’s first-ever fintech match-making platform, ProMatch.

Looking into 2024, Moynihan said that a great deal of effort and focus will be on the maintenance of the industry’s momentum as one of resilience and relevance. He said: “To that end, we will work increasingly with firms in Jersey to ensure they continue to embrace the opportunities presented by digital technologies and to help them navigate the rapidly shifting sustainable finance landscape. The fact that, in our most recent survey, more than 80% of global gatekeepers spoke highly of Jersey and Jersey Finance is a good endorsement of where we currently sit in a competitive and complex landscape. But we cannot afford to be complacent – the world is changing quickly and if we are to remain relevant and foster positive relationships, we must continue to innovate at pace throughout 2024.