Jersey Finance, as an Island representative body which promotes the finance industry in Jersey, is working with the Government of Jersey, the Jersey Financial Services Commission (JFSC), Digital Jersey, Locate Jersey and Jersey Finance Member firms to deliver a combined strategy to ensure that Jersey has a financial services eco-system that is well placed for a long and prosperous future as one of the world’s leading IFCs.
A global impact
Jersey Finance’s global business development team has focused on deepening relationships in key target markets in the Middle East, Greater China, Africa, India, US, UK and Europe. Working with these markets has had many clear benefits, as investors look for access to Western and emerging markets through well established and robustly regulated jurisdictions like Jersey,with our well known attributes, such as jurisdictional and tax neutrality, country risk mitigation, expertise and quality of service. Furthermore, this ecosystem has seen the development of a stream of new products to ensure our offering is relevant and attractive to our international target markets.
Jersey’s finance industry acts as a very significant cog in the global economy, helping manage and administer more than £1.3 trillion of global assets. As a forward-thinking IFC, Jersey Finance has developed strategic and effective decisions over the last decade, culminating with the opening of our New York office last year.
With offices in Hong Kong, the Dubai International Finance Centre (DIFC) and London, plus fly-in models to Africa, India and China, Jersey’s global representation in the world’s leading finance centres is truly unique amongst our competitors.
In fact, 50% of business attracted to Jersey now comes from outside Europe, reflecting Jersey’s evolution as a centre for facilitating global financial flows. This is particularly positive for the UK, with Jersey now helping to facilitate some £0.5 trillion of good quality foreign investment into the UK each year. In total, this adds £14 billion to the UK economy and supports in the region of 250,000 jobs.
Jersey is also playing a key role in putting UK investor capital to work overseas. Our strong relationships within Europe, for instance, enable the Island’s industry to facilitate around €200 billion of high-quality inward investment into the EU each year.
Our recent industry figures show resilience and an innate ability to adapt to global trends and investment needs. The net asset value of regulated funds was £361.7 billion during Q2 2020 and the value of total funds under investment management stood at £27 billion at the end of Q2 2020.
As a jurisdiction, we are playing our part in helping the world economy move forward, with Jersey attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) totalling around US$66 billion each year from sources including the UK, Ireland, India, France and South Africa, as well as distributing outbound FDI of around US$76 billion to both developed and emerging markets around the world.
Cementing international relationships
A vital connection for us recently has been the US. We made a concrete commitment to this relationship by setting up a Jersey Finance office in New York in October 2019, enhancing Jersey’s visibility in the US and promoting our proposition as a gateway to Europe for US alternative fund managers. Jersey offers a compelling proposition for US managers who are seeking a stable, reliable platform to support their European strategies. We already have good familiarity among the US funds community, with the value of US promoter assets administered in Jersey more than doubling over the past five years or so. However, with pandemic-induced disruption in the US in 2020 (whose economy shrank by 32.9% year-on-year), this gives Jersey an even stronger opportunity to prove itself as a resilient, stable jurisdiction for managers. Our route to market is well-established, our substance rules are solid, and we are consistently compliant with international standards of transparency and cooperation.
The US office is only the latest in a suite of Jersey Finance offices being established in key centres around the world. In addition to our longstanding London presence, in 2018 Jersey Finance formally opened its office in Dubai and became the first IFC to open an office in the DIFC – a hugely significant move for Jersey in a market where we have a long and solid history.
Africa is another key global partner for us, a region with great industry potential and which we have the expertise to nurture. Jersey’s relationship with this region is helping it to diversify the range of services it can provide both to African investors and investors looking to invest into Africa too. The Government of Jersey is helping deliver support and sustainable growth to African countries by providing access to capital markets, investor protections and through capacity building in areas of expertise such as tackling financial crime. For more than two decades, Jersey has earned a reputation among African investors as a jurisdiction of choice for private wealth management, working extensively with high net worth families to internationalise their wealth and support cross-border investment, wealth structuring and succession planning.
Jersey is seeing an uptick in demand for supporting outbound investment into new markets and sectors such as philanthropy, impact investing and alternative assets.
In addition, Jersey’s fund structuring and market access capabilities are enabling fund managers in Africa to attract investment from European institutional investors, whilst we are also seeing a growing number of Jersey firms working with African businesses to provide robust access to pools of
capital in key investor markets, such as London. As a future focused jurisdiction, Jersey has already negotiated a range of international agreements with partners in sub-Saharan Africa, including Double Taxation Agreements (DTAs), Asset Recovery Agreements and Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) on cooperation and knowledge sharing.
Stability in uncertain times
This year, Jersey’s presence in these regions has become more important than ever. Recognising the challenges and rapidly evolving COVID-19 situation, particularly in the Gulf Region and Asia, Jersey has been proactive in taking steps to support clients and partners in these regions. The industry has come together quickly with the Government and JFSC, to ensure that business can continue despite the challenges posed by the current environment. Measures taken by Jersey have helped ensure that, as far as possible, it is business as usual for advisers in Jersey with clients overseas.
Jersey Finance’s business development team has been working hard to ensure we are keeping conversations open, meeting the continuing demand for client opportunities promoting Jersey’s consistently high-quality service and stability.
A global perspective is essential in today’s increasingly international financial services landscape – it is no good thinking small, we must all think global and work together to succeed and ensure future prosperity for both local and global economies. Particularly through these unprecedented circumstances, Jersey will continue to help channel capital to where it is needed most and we look forward to many more years of forging long-lasting, robust relationships with our key global partners.