International Finance Magazine Gives Channel Islands Clean Bill Of Health

by Carla Johnson, Investors Offshore.com

08 August 2002

Jersey and Guernsey's finance sectors have welcomed an article published earlier this month in International Money Marketing magazine which painted an optimistic picture of the future for finance in the Channel Islands.

Although the report's author, Simon Gray visited in the month that two local banks announced that there would be back-office job losses due to restructuring, he suggested that the redundancies were not likely to dramatically impact on the economies of the Channel Islands:

'Any sign of contraction rather than growth casts a shadow across the islands' financial industry,' he observed. But 'with effectively full employment in both islands and the finance sector if anything suffering from a labour deficit, any staff who are laid off are likely to find new jobs quickly.'

Mr Gray went on to observe that although pressure to comply with international regulatory standards on tax competition and money laundering has proved to be a source of concern for Jersey and Guernsey, there is 'increasing recognition that the islands if anything impose higher standards in terms of 'know your customer' disclosure and anti-money laundering precautions than many of the world's leading onshore financial centres.'

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