Bryan Hunter, a CIFSA director, told Cayman Net News that the organisation, which promotes the jurisdiction's financial services sector, felt compelled to submit evidence to the inquiry given the potential for yet more negative but inaccurate publicity about the Cayman Islands and the offshore world at large.

“Inaccurate information is one of the issues we have successfully addressed and this unique opportunity to participate at the data collection stage of such an initiative was one that we felt should be taken,” he said.

According to the report, CIFSA’s response includes information on the anti-terrorism regulatory framework of offshore centres, the level of cooperation on taxation matters, and the level of adherence to global regulatory standards.

The House of Commons Treasury Committee announced its inquiry on 30th April. Its terms of reference include examining the impact of offshore financial centres on global business and investment, and the international fight against money laundering. It forms part of the committee's ongoing work into Financial Stability and Transparency. Interested parties had until 19th June to submit evidence to the investigation.

The Treasury committee's announcement of the offshore inquiry coincided with the publication of a report by another parliamentary watchdog, the Public Accounts Committee, which suggested that the standards of financial regulation in most of Britain's Overseas Territories were not as good as those which exist in the UK Crown Dependencies such as the Isle of Man and Jersey.

This also provoked a response from CIFSA, which earlier this month sought to correct “misrepresentations” in the PAC report.

“CIFSA generally welcomes discussions on offshore centres because it improves the level of information on the important role of jurisdictions like the Cayman Islands. But we also feel that on occasions like this it is equally important to correct any misrepresentations, particularly those may impact international perceptions of the standards of regulation in the Cayman Islands," commented Eduardo Silva, Chairman of CIFSA.

Silva has pointed out that Jersey officially recognises Cayman’s anti money laundering (AML) practices as equivalent to its own, and its regulator, the Jersey Financial Services Commission, has said that financial institutions can rely on the ‘know-your customer’ and ‘due diligence’ work of the institutions in the Cayman Islands.