IMF Team 'Positive' Over Guernsey Regulation

by Robert Lee, Tax-News.com, London

28 November 2002

An International Monetary Fund delegation sent to assess the degree to which Guernsey's regulatory regime complies with international standards has expressed satisfaction with its findings, according to a report in the local media.

Speaking to the Guernsey Press and Star prior to the team's departure on Tuesday, chief of the special financial supervisory issues division, Barry Johnson revealed that the IMF delegation was impressed by what it saw during its two week visit to the Island, but declined to give further detail on the team's findings.

'We have been assessing the compliance of financial systems in Guernsey with international standards as part of our international efforts at assessing countries worldwide,' he told the newspaper this week, continuing:

'I think that Guernsey does comply well with those standards and the Financial Services Commission has been doing a good job and is keeping up to speed with developments in the international regulatory community.'

This verdict will doubtless please Guernsey's Financial Services Commission director, Peter Neville, who warned earlier this month that the IMF delegation would be looking to criticise the jurisdiction's regulatory regime:

'The IMF will find things to criticise because it cannot send nine people here for two weeks and not find anything,' he reasoned prior to the visit.

According to the Guernsey Press, although a draft report has now been made available, the full IMF assessment will take between six and nine months to complete.

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