Jersey FSC To Restructure Industry Divisions

by Robert Lee, Tax-News.com, London

07 June 2004

The Jersey Financial Services Commission has recently unveiled a restructuring programme that will see the island’s regulator organised more along industry lines.

Under the changes, the current divisions, Compliance, Authorisation and Insurance, will be replaced by four new divisions: Banking; Securities (including Funds and Investment Business); Trust Companies; and Insurance.

According to the FSC, each of the Divisions will be headed by an Executive Director who will be responsible for regulatory and supervisory oversight of their respective industry sectors. The Directors will also be responsible for delivering regulatory and supervisory policies for those sectors and they will be assisted in this by a new Research and Development Unit.

The four Directors will report to the Deputy Director General who will have overall responsibility for co-ordinating their activities, including policy development.

Other Divisions of the Commission, including Enforcement and the Registry will report directly to the Director General. This will also include a new Risk Unit which will be responsible for risk management, quality assurance and internal audit.

The new structure will involve the creation of two new Director posts. But this will be offset by the deletion of the current Director, Authorisation post and of other vacant posts. The changes will therefore be self-financing and will not result in an increase in headcount with the exception of a junior post in the Registry.

Commenting on the changes, David Carse, Director General of the Commission noted: "The new structure will provide a greater industry focus to the Commission's work, promote greater industry expertise within the Commission and lead to greater cohesiveness in its policy-making."

The restructuring is expected to be completed by July this year.

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