Dubai: Jersey, the self-governing British Crown dependency located in the English Channel, is keen on closer ties with the UAE’s financial services industry and cooperation in areas such as tourism and agriculture, Senator Ian Gorst, Chief Minister of Jersey, told Gulf News in an Interview.
The island of Jersey is the largest of the Channel Islands and its largest industry is financial services, with more than 20 per cent of the population employed in the sector. A delegation from Jersey was in the UAE last week on a two-fold mission: to strengthen ties with the UAE and to sign the latest regulatory agreement between the two jurisdictions.
The delegation included the island’s financial services regulator and senior government and industry figures.
The Jersey Financial Services Commission (JFSC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA). The agreement will further assist in the development of regulatory links between the Gulf and Jersey, and will strengthen the island’s ability to undertake business in the region.
With the cross-border financial services between Jersey and the UAE expected to increase in the coming years, Jersey wants closer cooperation with financial sector regulators in the UAE. The new MoU establishes a formal framework for the exchange of regulatory information and mutual assistance for the purpose of ensuring compliance by financial service firms with each jurisdiction’s regulatory requirements.
Jersey provides financial expertise to the UAE through services in Islamic finance, private wealth management and international banking. The relationship between Jersey and the UAE has grown over the last decade, with the UAE now being Jersey’s strongest international relationship globally, after the UK.
“We have a long relationship with the UAE and the Gulf region,” Gorst said. “We come here frequently to deepen that relationship and offer our full support to our partners in the UAE and the region.”
The new MoU will enable both the regulators to work together to understand better each other’s regulatory perspective. Jersey’s financial regulator already has separate regulatory agreements with the UAE Central Bank and the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA).
Gorst believes that although the UAE’s fast growing financial services industry poses competition to Jersey, both can cooperate and complement.
“We don’t mind competition. It is healthy for both financial centres. Over time we expect consolidation among international financial centres. Although a number of UAE banks have trust operations in Jersey, nothing prevents it from having the same operation in the DIFC. We have the advantage of proximity to London, while the DIFC is in the middle of a fast-growing region. Although there is an element of competition there are lot of areas we can complement each other,” he said.
Gorst said Jersey is working hard with other governments and international regulatory bodies to achieve a level playing field for the wealth management sector in terms of tax and transparency matters. “We will continue to work with industry and other governments to achieve our common goals”, he said.
“Jersey will benefit from a level playing field because clients will choose jurisdictions where the best services are. That is why it is increasingly important that Jersey is promoted in international markets,” he said.
“We engage with the OECD [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development] when it comes to common reporting standards. We always argue these standards need to be applied on a global basis so that the issues they are trying to address are not dealt with differently across different jurisdictions. We believe that issues relation to tax evasion on money laundering will have to be addressed across all jurisdictions at the same level. That is the reason we are actively engaged with the OECD on compliance and equal enforcement of regulation across all jurisdictions,” he said.
